


Sparks Fly

by Defira



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Multi, Multiple Inquisitors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:38:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 67,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7792651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defira/pseuds/Defira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andronikos Revel, most feared pirate in the Outer Rim and Republic defector, finds himself aimless after his business on Tatooine wraps up to an unsatisfactory end. At loose ends now that the mutineers have been dealt with, he takes up the offer presented to him by the two sith kids he helped- namely, to be their new pilot. </p><p>Thankfully, he's not the only non-sith on board, delighted to find the ship's mechanic to be an attractive distraction. But the little sparky is hiding secrets of her own, and chauffeuring sith brats around is more complicated than it looks...</p><p>[A sequel to We Three Sith]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Andronikos eyed the Fury-class Interceptor appreciatively as he ambled along the floor of the Mos Ila spaceport, his bags slung over his shoulder as he strolled after the two Sith and their... giant meaty friend. Khem, or something. Big bastard, one of the bigger aliens he’d come across in his day for sure; he was half thinking about what it’d take to start a fight with it, just to see if he could hold his own against those clawed bludgeons it called fists. 

Never been aboard an Interceptor before, though he’d shot a few of ‘em down in his time. He found them a bit graceless, to be honest- all sharp edges and black veneer, just to remind folks that this weren’t no _normal_ starship, this was a _Sith_ ship. Tactless and violent, just like the masters of the ship.

Still, it’d be fun having a poke around, take a look at the engines, see what kind of fuel efficiency it had. It’d be a nice distraction from the abysmal failure that was Tatooine, an entire year of hunting and hating wasted, and the bittersweet finality he’d felt saying goodbye to Casey a few minutes earlier. His whole life had been in the shitter for well over a year now, no reason not to throw all caution to the wind and take on with two Sith. 

Wasn’t the worst job he’d ever had, to be honest. 

The two of them stalked ahead of him, as different as blue milk and durasteel- the young lad had been more accommodating, if sort of quiet and sullen, while the Pureblood girl had been as mad as a bag of lothcats left out in the rain. She hissed at him as often as she spoke to him, which weren’t all that often, and if it weren't for the fact that the kid often had the meat monster trailing in his shadows like a bad smell, he would’ve said he found him far more appealing company. 

_Heh_. He’d survived two weeks in an escape pod drifting in space with only himself for company. He could survive on a big ass luxury warship with a couple of temperamental teenage-looking Sith brats. 

The ramp was down for access, and he had his hands stuffed in his pockets as he loitered a few steps back waiting for one of them to open the hatch; the sullen kid- _kriff_ , he really needed to be better about learning their names, he couldn’t just call ‘em Sith-One and Sith-Two without expecting to get zapped- pressed his hand against the bioscanner, and after a moment it beeped in the affirmative and the door hissed open as the vacuum seals disengaged. 

... and the unmistakeable sounds of _Midnight Dancer_ by the twi’lek pop group Moon Room, one of the most gratingly cheerful bubblegum pop songs to have been released and inflicted on the population of the galaxy in the last few years, drifted down the ramp and into the landing bay. 

In front of him, he saw the kid sigh in resignation, shoulders slumped. 

He couldn’t help himself. “Wouldn’t’ve picked you scary Sith folk to be the type to go for pop rock,” he drawled, even as the singers warbled in harmony and made them all wince. 

The Pureblood girl made a noise of disgust. “It’s just Bejah,” she said irritably, as if that explained everything; she stomped forward into the hallway, and he had the distinct impression that if she’d had a cape, she would have twirled it ominously. Damn drama queen, was it too much to ask that he might find himself lucky enough to fall in with sith who weren’t such fucking actors? 

Shrugging to himself, he hoisted his bags up higher on his shoulder and followed her in, taking in the swish leather couches in the main room and the sleek tech consoles along the back wall. Sith did seem to like their gadgets, for all that they had their magic tricks. He stood for a moment in the middle of the doorway, waiting for one of them to point him in the direction of a bunk or the cockpit so he could get set up for launch, and when neither was forthcoming he followed the sounds of the music to where he could see the Pureblood standing in exaggerated irritation with her hands on her hips. 

Peering over her shoulder, he found himself looking into the engine room, which pleased him a little- good to know where he’d be spending some of his working hours, as the new pilot, and it’d be good to get his hands on some Imp tech, see exactly how they worked. The music was coming from a small music player sitting over on the bench, the sort of small grey box you saw for sale for a couple of credits in any dingy bazaar all over the galaxy, and as he leaned around the corner to see better over the sith girl’s head, he blinked in surprise at the rest of the scene. 

A cheap cloth hammock strung up beside the engine, the sort he was used to seeing on pirate junks or salvage ships, but not on a fancy, sleek sith ship. Tools and parts scattered about seemingly without a care, with at least two half built droids- one of which looked like to be a miniature reworking of the Oppressor class of battle droids- propped up absently against the walls. There was a poster, of all things, taped up on the wall nearest to the hammock, a promo sign for an old holo he remembered seeing about fifteen or sixteen years ago, some sappy romance that he’d gone to under sufferance to try and charm a girl he wanted to sleep with. The hammock was piled high with colourful blankets, and there was a spacer’s hutch hanging open near the workbench, clothes spilling out onto the floor.

And in the middle of the room, laughing and clapping, was a young woman with dark skin and bouncy, coiled hair, dancing exuberantly with a gonk droid. The gonk droid, a dumb little box on legs that only came as high as her knee, was bopping along awkwardly and trying to match the beat, even though it looked just as likely to keel over onto its back any minute now. 

It was the most fucking adorable thing he’d seen in years, and despite the frustrations of the last few days he felt himself fighting not to grin at the scene before him. 

In front of him, the Pureblood girl sighed. “Bejah,” she called, speaking loudly to be heard over the music. 

The other girl- Bejah, cute name- looked up with the most extraordinary smile on her face, and for a moment he actually felt a bit dazed looking at it. She was practically glowing with joy, enough that he could _feel_ it. 

_Keep it together, Revel._

And then her brain seemed to register that she had an audience for her frivolity, and the smile abruptly lurched into an expression of horrified mortification; she might have let out a wail, he wasn’t sure, but she definitely lunged for the music player as if the floor beneath her had burned her feet. The warbling sounds of Moon Room died away instantly, and she swung back around to them with a look of dismay on her face that might almost have been amusing if it wasn’t so bleak.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” she said pleadingly, her eyes darting in a panic between him and the sith. At her feet, the gonk droid was beeping and chirping with far more coherence than he usually expected from a walking battery, and if he didn’t know better he’d say the damn thing was trembling as it cowered behind her legs.

“I’m not surprised,” the sith girl drawled in wry amusement. “I’m surprised you still have eardrums left.”

She was fidgety, trying not to wring her hands together nervously and instead trying and failing to tuck her hair behind her ears; each time she tried, the curls sprung free again, like a bouncy cloud that refused to be tamed. “I didn’t spend the funds Zash gave us,” she said. “For the music box, I mean. I was- I was looking for parts, down in the market, and I saw it, and I had some of my allowance with me-”

“Oh, for- I don’t _care_. Just don’t play it so _loud_.”

Her eyes lingered longer this time on his face, and he met her gaze curiously. Her makeup choices were interesting- extravagant enough to make him suspect she was taking her fashion tips from pop divas like Moon Room- but not bright enough that they hid the disfiguring brand burned into her skin over her left eye. It made his stomach roil a little in discomfort. 

She swallowed nervously, and then she straightened, her chin going up in defiance. “He can’t replace me,” she said stubbornly, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Hilarious, because she couldn’t have been more than ninety pounds soaking wet, and yet to all intents and purposes she looked like she was about to start something. “I’m perfectly capable as the mechanic.” 

Her Basic was a little halting, now that he paid attention, as if it wasn’t her first language. Different cadence to the way she spoke. 

He held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I ain’t here to steal no one’s job,” he said. 

“He’s not here to replace you,” the Pureblood said, and he could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “He’s the pilot. And a pirate. He thinks he’s terrifying.”

The insult didn’t brush off as easy as it should’ve, not after several days of chasing Wilkes and having his mistakes thrown in his face repeatedly. “I’ve killed people for less insult than that, little sith,” he said flatly. 

The Pureblood turned to face him, and very pointedly yawned. “I’m shaking in my boots,” she said, and then turned and swanned down the corridor and back towards the main room. 

Leaving him alone with the little mechanic Bejah who still had her hands in fists and who apparently wanted to fight him as a matter of honour. Well, he’d had _less_ auspicious starts, to be sure, but this definitely wasn’t a great one. “So,” he said, trying to roll with casual, “Moon Room, huh?” 

The spark of defiance in her eyes dimmed, and the nerves came flaring back. “I don’t know what they’re called,” she said, glancing awkwardly at the music player. “It just sounds nice.” 

_Smooth, Revel_. He cleared his throat. “Name’s Andronikos,” he said, offering his hand to her. “Andronikos Revel.”

She stared at his hand as if he’d offered her a live scorpion, and after a long moment of hesitation he wiggled his fingers at her, and he could tell she’d blushed. “Um, I’m Bejah,” she said, reaching forward as if she expected him to lash out at her. “Bejah Amariha.”

The moment her fingers brushed up against his, a sharp static spark jumped from her skin to his; she squeaked in alarm even as he grunted in surprise, snatching his hand back out of instinct and stretching the fingers out to lessen the pain of the shock. 

“I’m sorry,” she moaned in dismay, looking to all intents and purposes like she was hoping the floor would disintegrate beneath her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, it’s just-”

He laughed once, and wasn’t that weird enough- wasn’t exactly expecting to be laughing this soon after all the bullshit Tatooine had served up for him. “Hey, it’s fine,” he said, rolling his fingers out in a long stretch. “Dancing in socks, rookie mistake. Shoulda known better.”

She glanced down at her feet, and hesitated for just long enough that he began to feel weird about it, before she nodded. “Yes,” she said finally. “I should have known better.”

It was oddly formal, but he figured that was just the manner of her speech, if Basic wasn’t her first language like he thought. She didn’t speak again, and he shifted awkwardly, his bag feeling heavy on his shoulder. “So you’re the sparky around these parts, huh?”

Something that looked like panic came into her eyes and she took a step back. “What?”

“The sparky? Slang for a tech, ‘cause you play with sparks?” 

She quite visibly relaxed, looking relieved. “Yes,” she said, “yes, I’m the mechanic, I... I’m good with um... sparks?” 

He held up his still aching hand. “Apparently so,” he said, trying to jest. At her crestfallen look, he rushed onwards. “Hey, look okay, don’t worry about it, these things happen. I know it’s gotta’ve been hard being stuck with only sith for company, so we normals gotta stick together, yeah?” 

Bejah stared at him as if she didn’t know whether to burst into tears or hug him. 

“What’s the deal here, anyway, you’re not like... you’re not their slave, are you? You need help?” 

“No no,” she said hastily, shaking her head furiously. “I’m, um... I was. A slave I mean, but not to them. I’ve been with them for about a year, they don’t really scare me.” 

He raised his eyebrows at that. “You’re braver than most,” he said. “Can’t think of many folk who’d put up with brats like that for a year without getting twitchy.”

She didn’t meet his gaze. “They’re okay,” she said softly. “They take care of me.” 

Stuffing his hands back into his pockets and adjusting his shoulder so that the bag didn’t hang so heavily, he looked around at the mess she’d made of the engine room. “Well, anyone game enough to poke around in a battle droid and leave it that close to their bed can’t be that badly in need of protection,” he said, half teasingly. “Most sparkys I’ve known won’t even touch a war clanker, case the programming kicks in.” 

Bejah frowned in confusion, and then glanced over her shoulder; understanding lit up her features, and the delight and the pride in her eyes almost had his knees wobblier than a Hutt’s belly. “Oh, he’s not a battle droid,” she said proudly. “I mean, not yet. They don’t actually make a model this size, the Oppressors tend to run more towards heavy ordnance and anti-artillery, they’re for combating tanks and entrenched positions. This is one I made myself, or... _am_ making myself, I guess. A lot of it is guesswork, so, um... I don’t know if he works yet.”

Andronikos blinked. 

“His name is Creespa,” she supplied. “Or, at least, it’s probably going to be Creespa. If he likes it.”

“You’re going to name a working replica of a battle droid ‘ _crispy_ ’?” he asked, not quite sure he could believe what he was hearing. Namely, that a girl who didn’t look a day over twenty had gone and built herself a mini anti-artillery war droid without schematics, just because she wanted to, and was treating it like most other folk would treat a pet. 

The crestfallen look of hesitation on her face damn near killed him. “... yes?” she said awkwardly. “I mean, only if- only if he likes it. He’s not an exact replica, I switched out the armament features for a candy torch-”

“A what?”

“A candy torch? Or a sugar torch? You know, like chefs use, to melt sugar?” When he just stared, she added “I really love those little spongy sugar squares? Especially when you burn the edges, so I thought, well, why not have a droid that can do that for me?” 

She’d built a highly classified model of war droid from scratch because she wanted help making toasted marshmallows. Kriff, no wonder the girl weren’t scared of the sith brats, she was just about as terrifying as them all on her lonesome without their magic powers- and fucking adorable to boot. 

_Calm down, Revel._

“That’s, uh...” He rubbed at the back of his neck, grimacing at the overgrown stubble on his skull. He really needed a bath something fierce, and a half hour alone with a razor to get himself cleaned up again; Tatooine weren’t too friendly on a man’s skin care needs. And more than that, he clearly needed to get some space to settle himself and come to terms with the events of the day, so that he didn’t start panting after a doe-eyed little sparky just cause he was still a little rattled in the head. “Well, can’t say I ever considered myself much of a droid man, but that’s a mighty fine goal. I hope your little, uh, Creespa is everything your little heart desires.” 

She went rather still, her deep brown eyes slightly crinkled at the edges, as if she was thinking hard; then she frowned, squinting at him balefully. “Alright, _pirate_ , you don’t need to rub it in,” she said, near to spitting out the title. “You want to talk to me like I’m a silly little girl well then, you can just... just...” She looked like she was either about to shout or pass out. “You can just leave my engine room!”

Sparky had a temper, apparently; he held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, no offense intended, little sparky-”

“I’m _not_ little!” 

He paused, not quite sure how to take that, given that she couldn’t have come up to his shoulder, and looked like a strong wind would send her flying. “My apologies, ma’am,” he drawled instead. “I’ll get out from under your feet.”

She lifted her chin, staring down her cute little nose at him- god damn it, was there anything about this girl that weren’t damn near enough to give a man a case of the jelly-legs- and sniffed haughtily. “Yes,” she said, “you _will_.”

Well wasn’t she a little princess then; for some reason, the way she all but sneered it at him made his hackles go up. “Alright, alright your majesty, I’m leaving,” he snapped.

“Good!”

“Fine!” 

“And don’t come back in!” The door to the engine room hissed closed behind him, so close that it almost snared the corner of his bag. He hadn’t even felt her come up behind him, so she must have been light on her feet indeed if she’d crossed the room so fast to hit the door control. He had half a mind to yell through the door at her about courtesy and not trying to kill a man with a damn door, but then the warbling synth sounds of Moon Room started blasting again from inside the room, and he gave up. 

When he got back into the main room, he saw Kallathe standing in the hallway on the far side; she cast him a withering look that he knew meant that she blamed him for the renewal of the pop music, and then vanished inside a room further down. 

He couldn’t see the other kid, or his big meaty friend. At this point, it honestly looked like the meaty friend was gonna provide him with the best chance for friendly conversations. 

“Hello sir!”

He lurched backwards in alarm when a silver, vaguely humanoid head lunged into his field of vision, nearly dropping his bag in his haste to salvage his personal space. “What in the Corellian hells-”

“Oh, sir, I am ever so sorry for startling you!” A droid- it was just a droid. Of course it was another droid, kriffin’ damn it. “My apologies, I simply wished to welcome you properly to our fine ship.”

Rubbing at his face, he tried to keep a hold of the ragged ends of his patience. It had been a very long day. “Great, whatever. Tell me where I can stow my damn stuff.” 

“I would be delighted to offer you a tour of our ship’s facilities-”

If he hadn’t taken to keeping his hair shaved, he’d be trying to tear it out right about now. “Just tell me where to stow my kriffin’ bag!” 

“Of course, sir,” the droid said, not at all perturbed by his temper. “If you’ll follow me, I would be happy to show you the quarters allocated for crew members- and, if I may, I would be happy to show you our ship’s facilities with a guided tour.”

The damn thing was relentless, but it did show him to a bunk. The crew quarters were empty of any other inhabitants- except, of course, for Khem the giant walking meat slab. The other beds were all in pristine condition, the covers neatly tucked in and the pillows plumped, while Khem’s bed at the far end of the room resembled nothing more than... well, the first word that came to mind was a nest. The mattress looked like it had been gutted, like a wampa would gut a tauntaun for feeding, and there were shreds of stuffing strewn about everywhere. Khem was lying in the mess, his dark beady eyes watching him as he tossed his bag onto the bed closest to the door; he offered the brute a tired smile, the expression slipping towards a confused frown when he realised Khem held a datapad in his claws and- going by the noises coming from the screen-, was apparently watching a kids cartoon. 

Well this day just kept getting fucking weirder. 

“Ain’t no one else on board?” he asked, turning back to the droid. “The sith kids don’t sleep here?”

“My masters all have their own private quarters-”

“Why’s she sleeping in a damn hammock if there’s beds down here?” he muttered, half to himself. 

Khem growled something in his own language behind him, and then went back to his cartoon, if the increased volume was anything to go by. 

“I beg your pardon, sir?” the droid asked chirply.

“The spar- er, Bejah. Locked herself off in the damn engine room.” 

The ship droid pressed its hands together in delight at the mention of her name. “Oh! Mistress Bejah was responsible for my creation! I owe her a debt I cannot possibly hope to repay.”

“Of course you do,” he muttered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Of course she’d built the damn ship droid too- at this rate he wouldn’t even be surprised if someone came wandering into the cockpit to wax lyrical about how she’d built the damn ship from scratch too. “Okay, so, whatever, that’s done. Show me where I can work my magic.”

“Sir?”

Khem was definitely looking like the only person he could have a conversation with, and he couldn’t even understand the damn meat’s language. “The cockpit. For the love of kriff, just show me where the damn cockpit is.”


	2. Chapter 2

A jump from Tatooine to Alderaan was hardly a taxing use of his skills, but for some reason that _definitely_ wasn’t related at all to the damn princess down in engineering, he wanted to make a good show of it. He was a pretty damn good pilot, thank you very much, and it wasn’t for nothing that he’d earned such a reputation as a terror in the Outer Rim; he had a knack for feeling out the way a ship performed, coaxing out power and maneuverability that made other pilots’ heads spin. Granted, the sith ship was a bit fancier than anything he was used to flying, but fancy didn’t mean better. 

He’d still make this baby sing under his hands, all the same. 

Hanging in orbit over Tatooine, he prepped the ship for the jump to hyperspace, trying not to feel too bitter as he avoided looking at the planet below him. It was over, it was done, the door was closed on one of the worst years of his life, he didn’t have to think about it anymore. Just because he hadn’t technically gotten closure on any of it didn’t mean anything- he was alive, and most of the rest of those mutineering assholes weren’t. 

“Alright, sweetheart,” he muttered, half to himself, “show me what you can do.”

With the navicomputer blinking in the affirmative, he activated the hyperdrive and watched the stars stretch towards him; the ship didn’t even rumble under his hands, the jump into hyperspace the smoothest he’d ever seen. If he hadn’t been staring out the window, he wouldn’t even have been able to tell they’d jumped. 

“Huh,” he said, running his hand down the outside curve of the steering wheel; normally, he’d expect to have to keep an eye on the ion stabilizer the moment they hit that critical thrust and the ship started to lurch forward, but it hadn’t even fluttered. They were green across the board, in fact. “Damn, sweetheart, way to make a man feel redundant.” 

Good ship, though; _real_ good ship. He had to wonder now just how bad the pilots had been when he’d shot down Interceptors in the past; there was literally no way they should’ve been outmatched by his old pirate clanker. He wanted to feel smug about that, knowing how impressive it was to shoot down a ship like this now that he’d felt just how it moved, but damn- it was a little horrifying as well. 

What the hell were they teaching those scrubs in the Imperial academies, if they couldn’t even make a masterpiece like this baby come to life? 

No point dwelling on it, or he’d only get angry about it and start ranting about no good pilots who don’t know the first thing about working with their ship instead of forcing it to do what it ain’t want to. 

Dimming the windscreen so that the roiling mess of hyperspace wasn’t quite so bright and overwhelming, he set the ship to auto-management and lumbered to his feet. There was still pop music playing behind the closed door to the engine room, but other than that the ship seemed quiet. _Huh_. He figured a sith ship’d have all kinds of sinister goings-on going on, but this weren’t really anything different to running a private yacht; only difference was, instead of working for some spoiled preppy shits who’d threaten to have their daddy deal with him if he was insolent, he was working for some spoiled murderous shits who would gleefully put him in his place themselves. 

As if spending time in a sith brig hadn’t been bad enough to start with, now he had to take up with a couple of them. _Smart move, Revel_ , he thought sourly. 

With a couple of hours to kill between now and when they broke out over Alderaan, he decided the best thing to do was to clean up; the rooms he’d had back on Tatooine’d had a sonic shower in the refresher, which got him clean and all, but there was something different about getting to soak in a real hot water shower. 

Kriff, these brats better have hot water showers on this bucket. 

Khem stared at him as he gathered up his toiletries in the crew quarters, his dark little eyes never leaving him despite the fact that his weird little cartoon continued to play on the datapad. He recognized the theme song, that old puppet show about the wampa; someone had told him once that the whole thing was embedded with some sort of imperial brainwashing, to get to the kids before their brains developed right. That sorta thing seemed a bit grim for a kids show, but the person who’d told him was the sort to spend their time on conspiracy boards on the holonet. 

Song was catchy, though. 

The ‘fresher weren’t anything fancy- crew quarters never were, couldn’t really expect to find some kinda spa in here- but thank the kriffin’ stars there was a proper water shower unit, and not a sonic one. Guess serving a couple of spoiled sith brats had its perks after all. 

He dumped his kit in the sink and stripped off, leaving his clothes where they fell on the floor; they badly needed a wash, anyway, so it didn’t matter if they fell in a puddle or two right now. His skin prickled slightly at being exposed to the air, and he rolled his shoulders as he activated the spray. 

The moan he let out at the feel of proper hot water on his skin was probably borderline sexual, but he didn’t fucking care; this was the sort of small luxury that he’d earned after all his weeks on Tatooine. 

He dunked his head under the water, closing his eyes as it ran over his face, and he felt himself start to relax for the first time in... well, months, if he had to be honest. Maybe years. Mutiny and being marooned and then imprisoned and tortured and developing a hint of claustrophobia along the way tended to do that to a man; to that end, he kept the shower cubicle propped open ever so slightly, just a crack. There was a cool sliver of air trickling in and making the back of his legs unpleasantly cold, but he could ignore that. 

Didn’t tend to like closed doors too much. 

He squinted through the spray at the little frosted flexiglass panel in the wall, pushing it aside after a moment to see whether there was any soap stored inside. There was a couple of little jars and bottles, all of them containing goo and gel of various bright colours; he held a pink one up to his nose and sniffed, the candy sweet scent immediately bringing Bejah to mind. 

Knowing the little mechanic used the same ‘fresher he was currently standing naked in made his dick perk up a little too eagerly. 

“Easy there, boy,” he muttered, instead reaching for the most plain looking product on the shelf and hoping he’d have more luck. It smelled sort of sweet, but less explosively so than the pink goop, so it’d have to do. 

He got a lather going with ease, scrubbing hard at himself as if that’d scrub away the frustration and the bitterness from Tatooine along with the dirt. Fucking waste of fucking time, the whole thing; so many of the old crew dead, and not an inch of it felt satisfying at all. He thought he’d feel _something_ to see them all driven mad and dead from their greed, triumph or smug satisfaction or just bitter closure but he felt... nothing. Hollow. He’d stood over their lifeless bodies with the blood of the Tusken raiders on his boots and felt _nothing_. 

He hadn’t felt sad either. Maybe that made him more of a monster, like the stories of the terrifying pirate Revel said. 

He scowled and dunked his head under again, letting the water wash away the suds. The distinctly sweet scent of the bubbles still had his thoughts lingering on Bejah despite his best intentions- and despite the darker turn of his mood- and his dick was still a little too firm to be called disinterested. 

Ah, what the hell- it wasn’t like he’d had the luxury of hot shower in months now. Might as well make the most of it. 

He took his dick in hand and began to stroke, his other arm braced against the wall; the familiarity of it all was good, the relief of chasing his own pleasure and letting his head go pleasantly blank in the pursuit... except that _her_ lotions were still fresh on his skin, the soft sweetness not as headache inducing as he might have thought. It was a reminder that she’d stood here naked as well, her dark curls laying sodden against her dark skin, and wasn’t _that_ something to imagine... 

He came with a grunt, letting it spill between his fingers to disappear into the drain. 

He lingered under the water as long as he dared, until the warning light began to flash dully to remind him about the water stores. With a sigh of satisfaction, he finally switched it off, standing damp and relaxed in the steam until it dissipated enough to have him shivering. The mirror was fogged up by the time he climbed out, and he rubbed his forearm over the glass to clear it, his reflection grinning back at him all smug and at ease. 

He made a finger gun gesture at his reflection, and then set about with the rest of his ablutions. Nails clean and trimmed, check, teeth brushed, check, eyebrows trimmed back, check; he’d gone half wild living on Tatooine, living like a man possessed with no care for his personal hygiene or needs. It felt real good to look into the mirror and begin to see someone who looked familiar again. 

He had a little shaving cream left, but he made a mental note to stop off somewhere on Alderaan for new stock; planet of hoity-toits like that, there had to be dozens of boutiques and shit that sold skin care stuff. Probably try to fleece him out of every credit he had too, if he wasn’t careful. 

He’d fucked a girl once who worked on a makeup counter in Coronet City, back on Corellia. She’d always had fancy shit on hand for free, and hadn’t minded sliding him things under the counter either. 

Shaking the little can vigorously, he emptied the contents into his hand and smeared it over his face, being as liberal with it as possible. It’d been weeks since he’d done more than shaved dry with an old buzzer he’d found at the market in Mos Ila, and he was damned if he wasn’t gonna do a good job of it. 

Pulling a face at his foam smeared reflection, he lifted the razor up to his face- and then paused. He could hear something, something that had been covered up earlier by the insulation in the shower cubicle and the sound of the water, but now that he was out and paying attention, he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

The unmistakeable sound of female moans drifted through the walls, interspersed with giggling and the occasional ‘ _yes, yes!_ ’. 

He stared incredulously at his reflection in the mirror, the shaving cream still smeared all over his face; he wouldn’t have picked the kid to be one to be so shameless in his porn choices, which left the Pureblood girl. Apparently courtesy to your fellow travellers wasn’t so much of a thing amongst the sith? 

She preferred the ladies, huh. It probably explained a little bit about why she’d been so aggressive with him, now that he thought about it. 

Shrugging to himself, he continued shaving, pleased to see a little bit of his old self starting to reappear in the mirror in front of him. Between the shower and the wank, he _almost_ felt relaxed for the first time in months. His skin was clean and fresh, he was warm, and given that he’d been living on little more than spite and booze for weeks now, he still had to admit he looked pretty good in the reflection. 

This was a new start. Felt good. 

The porn continued playing in a nearby room and he did his best to ignore it, figuring he had no issue with it anyway; honestly, he had to admire the brass of her, to play it that loud. She was either really confident of herself or really looking to piss someone off. He scraped away the last of the foam on his face, and then reached for a towel, rubbing vigorously until his skin smarted. 

“ _Oh, kriff- yes!_ ”

His hands slowed to a stop as he frowned, brow crinkling. For a moment there, that had almost sounded like... 

... no way. 

His razor clanged noisily into the sink when he knocked it on his way out. Khem didn’t even look up as he stormed through the crew quarters clad only in a towel, but he heard him mutter something in that guttural language of his; he couldn’t understand the words, but the expression behind it, like a sigh of exasperation at these damn humans, was clear as day.

He ignored him.

He burst into the hallway, looking up and down towards the other rooms; the sounds were _definitely_ louder out here, and he _definitely_ recognised one of the voices. 

“Casey!” he shouted, gripping the edge of the towel tight at his hip to keep it from falling down. 

The sounds of sexual enjoyment stopped immediately. 

He gritted his teeth. “I know that’s you, Casey!” he said, trying to pinpoint where it’d been coming from. 

There was a long moment of silence, and then he very clearly heard Rix say “... no?” 

“Oh for-” He went to throw his hands in the air, only stopping at the last moment so that the towel didn’t drop to his ankles. “What the _hell_ , Rix?”

From the closest door, there was the sound of very hushed whispers, and then the creak of a bed. He tapped his foot impatiently, teeth gritted so tight it was a wonder they hadn’t shattered. Finally, the door slid open, and there was Casey- hair mussed up from sex with a sheet wrapped tight around her, while Kallathe stood beside her looking-

-oh for kriff’s sake, she was mostly naked. 

His head snapped to the side instantly, trying to avert his gaze from the naked sith. “What the hell, Rix?” he repeated.

“What the hell _what_ , Nikki?” she retorted, reaching up to push her hair out of her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Kallathe snorted. “ _Sex_ , Revel,” she drawled. “If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, I’m sure I can draw some pictures for you.”

Casey- wretched unforgivable traitor that she was- giggled. She _actually_ giggled.

His cheeks were burning as he snapped “I know what sex is! I just don’t know why she’s _here_ , having sex with _you_!”

Kallathe very pointedly licked her lips, and Casey shivered. “Because I’m good at what I do,” she said simply. 

Okay, well, that conjured up a few too many images that were a bit hard to ignore; he shifted the towel, moving his hand closer to the front to cover his dick. The smell of sex and sweat was thick on the air, and he could see the rumpled bed over their heads. 

Fucking stars. 

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he snarled, stabbing a finger towards them. “You said goodbye down in the space port-”

“Yeah, and how do you think I knew which hangar to go to?” Casey said, awkwardly trying to tug the blanket higher. “You think I just stood around pining, or ran from bay to bay hoping I’d find you?” 

“What, so lying to me about saying goodbye and sneaking yourself on board-” 

“She didn’t _sneak_ on board,” Kallathe said, something in her tone warning him that if he was a sensible man, he should drop it. He’d never been accused of being a sensible man. “I invited her.”

He went to glare at her, his gaze momentarily distracted by the flash of gold that was in her- _fucking stars don’t look down there!_ “What, and you didn’t think it was worth mentioning to the pilot that we maybe had to calculate for different weight bearings-”

Casey made a distressed noise. “You calling me fat, Nikki?” she asked incredulously.

The urge to scream was almost unbearable. “Will someone _please_ let me finish a kriffin’ sentence!” he roared. 

Instantly, he felt the familiar crackle of power in the air that seemed to follow the sith around like a bad smell, and a damn vice closed around his throat. He reached up, expecting to find that Khem had come up behind him to silence him, but his fingers only touched his own skin. As the vice squeezed tighter and he gasped, he felt it pull him upwards, until his toes were scrabbling for purchase on the floor. 

In front of him, Kallathe had sinuously glided past Casey, not at all subtle as she maneuvered herself between the two of them and nudged Rix back into the room. She was mostly naked and entirely predator, and seeing the way her eyes seemed to glow with almost gleeful malevolence as she raised her arm higher made it one hundred percent apparent that she was about to kill him. 

“‘s that th’ best you got?” he rasped, his head reeling from the pressure in his skull; there were black spots winking in front of his eyes. 

“Hey, come on now, he don’t deserve that,” he heard Casey say faintly, her voice panicked. 

And then-

“ _Kallathe!_ ” 

It was the kid, the sullen boy- shit, he couldn’t even remember his name when he wasn’t being choked to death. There was a searing surge of light, the smell of ozone and the hissing crackle of electricity, and then the vice around his neck was gone. He fell to the deck with a thump, gasping violently for air and waiting for his head to stop spinning; he felt a pair of hands on him, and he blinked dazedly up into Casey’s face. 

She looked utterly miserable. “Why’d you have to go and be such an asshole, Nikki?” she whispered, getting an arm around his back with difficulty and helping him back to his feet. 

Wheezing, he asked “Isn’t that what I do best?” as he tried to hold his balance while the whole damn ship spun around him. 

Ahead of him in the hallway, Kallathe had her back to him, still mostly naked and still apparently uncaring about anyone witnessing it. She still had a hand up, and if he squinted, he could see faint flickers of lightning dancing over her red skin, as if she’d put her hand up to block an incoming strike and had let the power run down into her arm instead. 

Out in the main room, the kid stood stoically, his fringe still hanging in his eyes and his hands loose at his sides. 

Kallathe let out a contented sigh, flexing her fingers carefully as she lowered her arm. “Don’t do that again,” she called, her voice amused more than anything. She seemed almost to be shouting, which was weird given the kid was only a half dozen steps away from her. 

He saw his nostrils flare, as if he was snorting under his breath. “Don’t make me come between you again,” he said flatly; not once did his eyes leave Kallathe, and Andronikos got the distinct impression that he wasn’t talking to him at all. 

Kallathe made a tutting noise. “As if I’d hurt her,” she said, which was a relief to some extent. It was fucking dumb of Casey to take up with a sith in the first place, and a promise like that wasn’t ironclad or nothing, but it was a relief to hear anyway. 

The kid- Kaltix, that was his name, Kaltix- seemed to take that as an acceptable answer, because he nodded tersely and then marched off, apparently back to locking himself in his own quarters to brood over sithy things. 

On the far side of the main hall, in plain view now that Kaltix was gone and no longer blocking the line of sight, was Bejah. Her eyes were wider than dinner plates and she looked like she was either about to burst into tears or throw up- ah, hell. She must have seen the whole rotten display. And he was-

He looked down. He was naked as the day he was born, the towel tossed a few feet away in the scuffle. Kriffin’ fuckin’ _shit_. 

In front of him, Kallathe chuckled, the sound making his skin crawl. “See something you like, Sparky?” she purred, before turning and swanning back into her quarters as if she hadn’t just tried to kill a man. That was apparently all that was needed to shock Bejah out of the daze she was in, because her hands flew up to her mouth as if to hide the fact that she was gaping, and then she turned and fled too, the door to the engine bay clanging loudly in the silence of the ship. 

Leaving him alone with Casey, who was red faced and couldn’t quite make eye contact with him. “Why’d you have to go and make a fuss, Nikki?” she asked, wiping away a fleck of fluff from his shoulder. She seemed to have a desperate need to have something to do with her hands, if the way she kept fidgeting and fixing her hair and touching him was anything to go by. 

“Why couldn’t you’ve just said you were coming along?” he retorted, his voice raspy from being choked. 

“What, and have to listen to your bullshit for months about how I’m pining after you and can’t let you go, or I’m jealous or some bullshit?” 

He winced as he rolled his head to the side, trying to stretch and failing. He wondered if he’d have bruises by the time they arrived in Alderaan, and whether they’d be in the shape of fingers, or just a coloured slab around his throat. “It’s fucking dumb taking up with a sith, Rix,” he said, but she just rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, well, that didn’t seem to stop you jumping onboard, now, did it?” she snapped. “Whatever, Nikki, she gave me a ticket off that dustbucket and even if I don’t leave the Black Suns behind entirely, it’s still a chance for a fresh start. If it’s good enough for you, why can’t it be good enough for me?”

“And the sex had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”

“Oh, grow up, Revel,” she said, tugging the sheet back into place as she backed towards the door. “I like you, Nikki, but right now you’re being a fucking asshole.” 

She vanished back into Kallathe’s room, leaving him alone in the hallway. Alone and naked, and now bruised on both his skin and his pride. 

Not such a great fresh start, then.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to sexual assault, depictions of graphic violence. No sexual assault actually takes place in the chapter.

Alderaan couldn’t come soon enough- even in a state of the art craft like this one, travelling at one of the fastest speeds currently achievable by man-made technology, it felt like the hours crawled by. Andronikos confined himself to the cockpit- or barricaded, that was probably the better word to use-, ignoring the depths of hyperspace beyond the shuttered glass in favour of going over the manufacturers specs for the ship in fine detail. He had to keep the ship in tip top shape, after all, had to know it inside and out. He definitely wasn’t sulking and hiding in the hope that no one would come looking for him to talk about the incident. 

Nope. Pirates didn’t sulk. 

When they dropped out of hyperspace at last, about a half hour early actually, which was frustratingly impressive even if he didn’t want to admit it, the two sith brats got a call from their teacher or master or sugar-momma or whatever the hell they called themselves in their weird hierarchy. Kallathe cooed and smirked and flirted throughout the call, apparently enjoying herself even more for the fact that she had an audience to see her perform, while Kaltix was quiet and monosyllabic when called upon. 

Andronikos stood silently up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he listened to them scheme. He didn’t trust the sith as far as he could throw them, and he’d be damned if he just put his head in the sand and let them plot behind his back- he’d spent enough time on Tatooine thank you very much, no more kriffin’ sand. 

When their lady sith friend had finished giving them instructions and disconnected, Kallathe turned immediately to Kaltix. “You can deal with that,” she said loftily. 

The kid looked taken aback. “What?” 

“I said, you can deal with that. You can take the monster with you and he can wax lyrical for hours about how wonderful Tulak Hord was and when you find the artifact he can cry over it for a while. You’ll hardly need me for this.”

“Lord Zash said-”

“I don’t _care_ what Lord Zash said,” Kallathe snapped, her playful tone turning razor sharp in a heartbeat. “This is my first chance to make actual political connections that might make a difference against my father, and I’m not going to pass up that opportunity to go hunting for some broken relic.”

Andronikos frowned. What the hell did her father have to do with anything?

“Come to the first meeting,” Kaltix countered. “Zash will have spies amongst Elana Thul’s court, and they will tell her if you do not appear.” 

Oh dear lord, politics. He wondered whether he’d get choked again for yawning pointedly. 

“She may very well be a suitable, er- connection, for you, or at least a good place to start looking,” he pressed, apparently capable of more than one syllable at a time when necessary. “The favour of a Thul would work well for you, yes?” 

She sighed dramatically. “Very well,” she said haughtily, the playful mockery back in place. The fact that she seemed to treat everything as a colossal game was more than a little unnerving. “I will accompany you to see the Lady Thul, so that your incomprehensible grunting doesn’t embarrass us and put an end to the hunt.” 

“You’re too kind,” the kid said, and if anything _he_ seemed amused by her answer as much as she was. 

Sith, kriff. He didn’t understand them at all.

“So who are you taking if Khem is coming with me? Revel?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kallathe said, before Andronikos could offer up his own objection. “I’ll take Casey with me.” 

Bejah went all but tearing past them, as if she was hoping to get down the ramp and out of the ship before anyone could stop her. 

“Bejah!” 

At Kallathe’s shout, she staggered to a halt, the wince quite obvious in the way she held her shoulders; she turned slowly, almost cringing as she said “Yes?”

“Where are you going? Aren’t you going to watch the ship?” 

She hesitated for a long moment, eyes flitting between them all as she fiddled with the tassels on the scarf. “I’m- I just thought I’d go to browse the malls,” she said awkwardly. “To see if there’s any parts we need.”

“You went shopping in Tatooine, and you spent thousands of credits on Nar Shaddaa on new parts- what could you possibly be hoping to find here that you couldn’t find in one of the tech capitals of the galaxy?” 

Her expression was miserable, as if she was just waiting for the teasing. After a long moment of silence, she finally said “Snow.”

“What?”

“I’ve never seen snow before,” she said, closing her eyes as if she was wishing she was anywhere else in the galaxy but where she was. “I just wanted to... see.” 

Oh, for- that was both the most adorable and the most awful thing he’d ever heard in his life. 

“I’ll take her,” he said, before he could think better of it. 

Every eye in the room snapped to him. 

“ _You’ll_ take her,” Kallathe said dubiously. 

“I don’t need a chaperone!” Bejah said incredulously.

Andronikos shrugged. “I ain’t planning on staying cooped up here,” he said, pushing off of the wall. “Figure there’s a few things I can pick up downtown, might as well make the most of it.” 

“Pairing off does seem the most sensible option to avoid Thanaton’s spies,” Kaltix mused. 

Bejah looked despairing. “But, I don’t _want_ -”

“I’ll get my jacket then,” he said, throwing Bejah a wink as he sauntered back towards the crew quarters. 

She didn’t speak to him as they crossed the spaceport, but she giggled when the customs droids scanned them, as if it tickled her. Stars, the girl really did like her droids; he lost track of her at one point in the crowds near the arrivals and departures junction, and when he turned around to find her in the mess, he finally spotted her chattering away in rapt delight to one of the security droids, apparently utterly unconcerned with the fact that the thing was two foot taller than her and easily weighed over a tonne. 

He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around, steering her away from the droid even as she called a goodbye to it over her head. Kriff, she was like a damn puppy, way too excitable and trusting- she was gonna get herself into trouble real easy if someone didn’t keep an eyes on her.

He went to say something to her about it, to warn her about keeping her cards closer to her chest, but then they stepped out of the main doors of the spaceport into the Thul district, and the wonder that overtook her face as she spotted the distant mountains and their dusting of late spring snow was so breathtaking that he nearly missed his footing. He looked away quickly, because he’d be damned if he started mooning over someone just ‘cause they got starry-eyed over some damn mountains. 

“So what’s the deal with Kallathe’s dad?” he asked, hands shoved into his pockets as they ambled along the boulevard. The sun was shining but the air was crisp, just enough to have his breath steaming in front of him when he exhaled. 

“What’s the what?”

“Her dad? She said something about him to the kid, something about wanting political connections.”

“Oh. That.” Bejah had the scarf pulled up almost to her nose, and her voice was muffled a little. “Her father is on the Dark Council, Darth Derisus. He didn’t want her born in the first place, and she really hates him. He thought she was dead up until a couple of months ago, and now she’s trying to build up a faction against him. Or something. I’m not sure, it confuses me.” 

Her makeup sparkled brightly on her dark skin in the sunlight, something that he hadn’t noticed in the gloom of the ship. In fact, she seemed to be attracted to a wild array of colours in general, now that he thought about how she’d decorated her bunk back on the Fury. The paints on her face glittered in bright golds and greens and blues, and the scarf around her neck was an almost violent pink. Her boots were the same colour. 

It was an adorable sort of eyestrain, he had to admit. 

“So, um...” She glanced hesitantly at him as they walked, and he realised too late that he hadn’t really responded to the answer she’d given him. _Shit_. “What should I, um, call you? Are you Captain Revel? Or... the other woman, Casey? She called you Nikki I think?” 

For some reason, the innocence of the question- as if captain was a rank he’d earned and not a title bestowed upon him for his crimes- annoyed him, and he fought back a scowl. “Just, whatever you want, sparky,” he said, turning sharply and angling towards the glowing holosigns he recognised to signify a bar. Today had been far too long already, and he needed a drink to soothe his raw throat. 

Bejah quickly fell behind him. “Where are you going?” she called, clearly uncertain about this new change of direction. 

“It’s whiskey o’clock,” he yelled over his shoulder, not breaking his stride. 

“But you said- what about the snow?”

He spun on his heel, walking backwards as he threw his arms wide. “You said you didn’t need a chaperone in the first place,” he pointed out, before turning again and continuing towards the bar. He wasn’t at all surprised when he heard the huff of frustration from across the street, or the sound of her rapid footsteps as she raced to catch up with him. When he glanced sideways at her, she scowled at him, and he beamed in response. “Attagirl, sparky.” 

“I don’t like this.”

“The snow’ll still be there in half an hour when I’ve had a drink,” he said, throwing her his most charming scoundrel grin. She just looked the other way, the lower half of her face hidden by her scarf.

The bar wasn’t anything fancy, same as you’d find in any port on any planet across the galaxy. Well, no, that probably wasn’t quite accurate- it was a hell of a lot cleaner than anywhere he’d been on Tatooine this past while, and given that most joints this close to a port tended to be utter dives frequented by spacers and miscreants, it weren’t too bad. It was dimly lit, and he couldn’t see any obvious security. His feet didn’t stick to the floor when he walked in, and there was even a real plant against the wall, not just a holo-tree. 

Bejah hovered awkwardly in the doorway as he made his way up to the bar, finally trailing after him with a dissatisfied look on her face; she eyed the bar with the sort of look that said she thought she was going to get an infection just from touching it. 

Little sparky was being a princess once again. “What’s your poison, Sparky?”

She blinked at him, as if she hadn’t been expecting him to talk to her again. “What?”

He paused. “You are able to drink legally, right?” Stars, it’d been years since he’d been on Alderaan, what was drinking age here? Eighteen? Nineteen? 

Bejah, stars bless her, looked like one of them fluffy birds the nobles loved so much, her dander in a fluff at the mere suggestion that she was too young. “I’m _twenty-one_ ,” she said angrily, with so much wounded pride that it took a lot not to laugh. She hesitated, and then she muttered “I’m pretty sure I am, anyway.”

“Come again?”

“I’m fine, it’s nothing.”

“You don’t know how old you are?”

She had her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her body language screaming defensiveness. “It’s not like they kept records,” she said tersely, refusing to look at him. 

Shit. “Hey, come on, it’s not like anyone is gonna check,” he said, trying to soothe her ego. He’d really blundered into that one. 

She shrugged rather forcefully. “Whatever. Fine. It’s fine.”

“Well, it’s clearly not fine-”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, from between gritted teeth. 

He closed his eyes and counted to three, wishing he hadn’t been dumb enough to take up with two sith brats and their equally temperamental mechanic; they were all making him feel far too old. “Okay then,” he said, forcing cheer into his voice when he opened his eyes. “What do you want to drink?”

She shrugged again.

He slid the menu along the bar towards her. “My treat, what do you want.”

She blinked down at the menu, and then something that looked like shame flitted through her eyes before she looked away again. “I don’t know. Whatever.”

“Come on, just pick something. There’s cocktails on the back-”

“I said I don’t know,” she said quickly, jerkily pushing the menu back towards him. “Whatever, you pick. You seem to know what to drink, just order for me.”

“Oh, for-” He bit back the childish retort that bubbled up to his lips. He gestured until he caught the attention of the bartender droid, waving it over. “Corellian whiskey for me, and a Cassandra Sunrise for the lady.” 

Bejah didn’t speak to him again while they waited for the drinks, but she did look almost nervous when it was set down in front of her. “What’s this?” she asked hesitantly.

“A drink,” Andronikos said grandly, gesturing elaborately to it. “Enjoy.”

He couldn’t tell in the dim light of the bar, but she might have blushed. “You don’t have to be so mean about it,” she said, picking up the glass and taking a far too large swallow. She seemed to realise her mistake a moment later, her eyes going wide as she choked and struggled not to spray it across the bar at the bartender. Andronikos watched her, a bland smile on his face. 

“Something wrong, sparky?” 

Choking and swallowing, she covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, eyes scrunched up tight as if they were watering. “It’s fine,” she said hoarsely. “You don’t have to hang around me now, I know you don’t want to be babysitting me.”

She had quite a backbone when she wanted to; it was impressive _and_ cute. Snatching up his whiskey glass, because he wasn’t about to pander to Princess Sparky and her shitty mood, he instead turned to survey the rest of the bar. Couple of folk who looked like they’d come off of a freighter, couple of dubious spacer types, and a couple of more fancy looking folk who were clearly from the other end of town, up where they had droids to wipe your ass and pick your nose for you. 

One in particular caught his eye, a noblewoman by her clothes and her bearing; she was watching him over the rim of her drink, a knowing smile on her face as she apparently waited for his attention to fall on her. When she noticed him looking, she patted the seat next to her, as clear an invitation as he needed. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said, as he slid down beside her.

“It’s getting better,” he said, offering her a charming smile. Her eyes danced with amusement. “What’s a fine lady like you doing slumming it in these parts?”

“You flatter me, sir, if you think me to be a fine lady,” she said, obviously preening from the attention. 

“Perhaps I’m just a man with fine tastes,” he said, glad that he’d thought to wear a high necked jacket to hide the bruising. 

“Is that so,” she said, clearly amused. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Corellian whiskey, for a refill.”

“A man with fine tastes indeed,” she mused, gesturing to the bartender. Andronikos threw back his first drink with ease, relishing the way it burned on his abused throat, and took to nursing the second one with more care. “And what would a gentleman such as yourself be doing in these parts, if you consider it to be slumming it?”

He chuckled. “A man’s gotta have some secrets, now, doesn’t he sweetheart?”

“Oh, a man of mystery, how delightful.” 

From behind him, he heard a hearty laugh. “Now why would such a pretty girl be all alone and looking so forlorn?” a smooth voice said, the silken charm enough to make the hair on the back of his neck lift out of wary scorn. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a young Alderaanian nobleman standing beside Bejah, offering her the brightest smile humanly possible. It made him want to roll his eyes. “Surely it’s a crime to leave such a lovely woman without company.”

He heard Bejah giggle, and he gritted his teeth. Not his business, she’d told him to leave her alone. 

“Something on your mind?” The woman in front of him had a perfectly shaped eyebrow raised, looking knowingly over his shoulder.

Andronikos scowled. “Nothing I can’t be easily distracted from,” he said smoothly, signalling to the bartender to bring them another round of drinks. 

Her lips pursed as if in amusement. “You haven’t stopped looking back at her once in our entire conversation,” she said, and she seemed to find it _hilarious_. “It makes a woman doubt her own charms.”

She leaned forward slightly as she said it, her ample cleavage pushing against the low cut satin of her gown. 

Forcing himself to ignore the new laughter he could hear behind him, he offered her what he hoped was his best bedroom smile. “We can’t have a lady so- _charming_ , doubting herself now, can we?”

She laughed delightedly. “I’m so glad we are in agreement,” she said, taking a sip of her whiskey and pausing to lick her lips quite pointedly. Andronikos felt his dick perk up slightly in his pants. 

They talked about nothing in particular for a while, sharing a few more drinks and getting a little closer. By the time they were on drink number four, his head was pleasantly starting to grow just a little fuzzy, just enough to make him feel relaxed, and her hand was all the way up his thigh beneath the darkness of the bar. She’d dropped the pretense awhile back about wanting anything more than a good fuck, and he’d politely ignored the pale band of skin on her finger where her wedding ring normally sat. Repressed noblewomen in arranged marriages looking to have a little fun with a filthy _commoner_ were always good for an afternoon.

When he next looked back towards where he’d left Bejah, she’d moved from the bar to a private table by the wall, and the noble brat who’d lured her off had brought a few friends along. He frowned at that, and at the multiple empty drinks on the table in front of them, but then he felt a rather firm hand between his legs, and he found himself quite distracted.

Her lips were by his ear, her perfume thick in the air. “I have a room nearby,” she murmured, her voice husky from the whisky they’d shared. 

“That so?” he asked, grinning as her lips drifted lower, a gentle nip tugging on his earlobe. 

He glanced over towards Bejah’s table, thinking he could just slip out and be back before she even noticed he was gone- but what he saw made his heart stop, only for adrenalin to kick in with white-hot fury a moment later. 

“Pardon me, sweetheart,” he said, all but heaving the noblewoman off of his lap. Over by the wall, Bejah was very obviously distracted by one of the young men toying with her hair, giggling and blushing as his fingers traced the curve of her neck. That wasn’t what had him so angry though.

It was what one of the other young brats was doing that had him ready to murder. 

He lunged forward and grabbed the young man’s arm around the wrist, immediately wrenching it backwards at a bad angle; he shrieked, his hand spasming and the small item he’d been surreptitiously trying to add to Bejah’s drink falling out onto the table. A small, white tablet. 

“What is the meaning of this?” the young nobleman shrieked, trying desperately to extract himself, or at least get his arm back to a less painful angle. “ _Unhand_ me, you _brute_.”

Andronikos stared down at the little tablet, and then looked up at the young man. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, with deceptive calm. He reached forward with his free hand and picked up the offending item, holding it up close to his face to inspect it. He already knew what it was, of course, there was no need to look closer, but he still made a show of it and _tsk_ ed loudly as he did. “I wouldn’t do that at all.”

“It’s nothing,” the young man said, sweat already beading on his brow, the pain in his arm making the veins pop out against his skin. “It’s just for pain relief.” 

He could feel Bejah’s eyes on him, and he somehow resisted from throwing her a smug smile. 

“Is it now,” he said instead, with excessively fake surprise. “Well then, if you’ve a need for pain relief, I won’t stop you from taking it.”

The man’s face grew red. “I- it’s not-”

“Take your medicine, my lord,” he said silkily, twisting his arm tighter until he sobbed. “You seem to be in a lot of pain at the moment.”

“I say now, you really should unhand him.” One of the other men at the table finally found his voice, and looked to be close to vomiting from nerves. “His father is a Count-”

“Well, he’ll be counting out his credits to pay for this one’s med bill if he doesn’t hurry up and take his medicine,” Andronikos replied. “Take the tablet, kid.”

The young man was so red faced he looked likely to pass out any moment now, and Andronikos had his arm twisted so far back that he could feel the bones grinding together under his palm. “I don’t want to,” he spat at him, his lip trembling even as he tried to sneer. 

Andronikos shrugged. “That’s too bad then,” he said. 

And he broke his arm. 

The kid howled, and Andronikos made sure to squeeze hard on the fracture before letting go; the other two brats had lunged to their feet, their stools falling onto the floor as they’d scrambled to get away from him. “You _brute_ ,” one of them started, and Andronikos barked out a laugh at him. 

“That supposed to be an insult, kid?” he asked, watching as they all huddled on the far side of the table to him. Bejah sat stone still in the middle of it all, her eyes fixed on the tiny little chalky tablet that lay almost forgotten between them all. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that.” 

“Do you have _any_ idea who I am?” the injured nobleman snapped, trying to draw himself upright even as he tried to cower over his broken wrist. 

He snorted. “Kid, I don’t give a kriffin’ shit who you are, but you should probably be worried about the fact that you pissed off the most terrifying pirate in the Outer Rim.”

He saw them all pause and draw back, their eyes widening; he was vaguely aware that at some point in the last few minutes, the handful of occupants in the bar had gone silent, all watching in morbid fascination at the drama unfolding before them.

One of the cronies made a disparaging noise. “You expect us to believe _you’re_ Andronikos Revel?” he said mockingly. 

“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” he said, walking casually around the table towards them. They all backed up again uneasily. “What I expect from now on is that you’ll think twice about being a shitty rich brat who thinks his daddy’s title will get him off the hook when he hurts people.”

“What do you care,” Little Lord Snivel snarled, clutching his broken wrist to his chest. “She’s only a slave.” 

Andronikos drew his arm back and punched him. 

He heard the crunch of his nose under his fist, and the impact rattled all the way up his arm to his shoulder; it’d been a long time since he’d been in a bar fight, longer still since he’d been dumb enough to start one against multiple opponents who were much younger than him. 

Eh, what the hell. 

Luckily, the brat went down easy, squealing and wailing as blood trailed down his face; he seemed torn between whether or not to let go of the broken arm to tend to his broken nose, and instead just lay on the floor with his hand fluttering uselessly between them both. Andronikos fought off an obvious grimace as he flexed his aching hand. He’d split the skin over his knuckles, and there were a few splatters of blood on the floor below him because of it. 

He squared up his shoulders and looked up to find the other two, half expecting he’d need to dodge an incoming fist in the process. He wasn’t actually all that surprised to find that one of them appeared to have fled immediately, given his conspicuous absence from the scene; the other was kneeling beside his friend, his face pale enough that he looked like he was about to swoon. 

Shitty ass noble brat assholes. Couldn’t even give him the satisfaction of a decent fight to work off his frustration. “You look to be in a fair amount of pain at the moment, my lord,” he said loudly, knowing everyone in the bar was listening. “Would you like me to fetch your medicine for you?”

“It’s a sedative,” the kid shouted, his voice verging on hysterical. “It’s a sedative, alright? She’s just a slave, no one is going to care if we have a little fun for the afternoon-”

Andronikos very pointedly stepped forward and put his boot over the kid’s kneecap, putting just enough pressure on the joint to make him wail in a panic at the threat. “I didn’t know she belonged to you! I never would’ve-”

“She ain’t belong to anyone but herself, you shit-eating waste of space,” Andronikos snarled. “Don’t go simpering to me, I ain’t the one you tried to hurt.”

When he didn’t say anything further, he pressed down harder on his knee, forcing a howl of pain from him. “Apologise to the lady!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to touch her-”

He increased his weight on the leg.

“You! I mean you, I shouldn’t have tried to touch _you!_ ” he corrected, shouting vaguely in Bejah’s direction. “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, I’ll do anything. Money, do you want credits? My family is very wealthy, my father can pay whatever you-”

Andronikos was sick of his babbling; with a grunt of effort he bore down all of his weight on his leg, the pop and crack of his knee drowned out by the scream he let out. Turning back to the table- and taking note of how sick and miserable Bejah looked- he snatched up the offending tablet and bent down beside the screaming nobleman. 

“My apologies, my lord,” he drawled. He grabbed him by the chin and stuffed his fingers into his mouth, pushing the tablet past his teeth. “I hear this works _great_ for pain relief.”

The asshole choked a little on it, whimpering and moaning as he tried to spit it back up. Leaving him to it- because if that other little shit hadn’t run off to fetch local security, someone would’ve alerted them by now anyway- he stood up, wiping his hands on his pants as he turned back to Bejah.

She was not sitting at the table.

Blinking, he spun on his heel, taking in the entirety of the room. She wasn’t anywhere in the bar, although the noblewoman from early still was, and she was watching him with a wariness that hadn’t been there before. 

“Fuckin’- oh, come on!” He lunged for the doorway and stumbled out into the street; the mid afternoon sunlight was beginning to turn soft and golden, the rays slanting from between the buildings. It wasn’t hard to spot her, with her damnably pink scarf and boots, tearing down the street at a brisk walk with her head down. 

“Hey,” he called, picking up the pace slightly as he tried to catch up to her. She ignored him. “ _Hey!_ ”

She continued to ignore him.

Gritting his teeth to stop himself from snarling, he yelled “ _Bejah!_ ”

Ahead of him, she stumbled slightly, and he felt a wave of relief that she wasn’t about to break into a sprint to get away from him. That relief quickly segued into mild panic when she went down onto her hands and knees abruptly, and he cursed under his breath and ran the last few dozen yards when he saw her shudder in the far too familiar rhythm of someone about to vomit. 

She retched onto the cold sidewalk just as he reached her, skidding to a halt and dropping into a crouch beside her. “Hey, hey, easy there,” he said, trying not to sigh in exasperation. His hand was aching where he’d punched that little shit, the blood on his knuckles only just starting to grow sticky instead of wet; it was just enough to make him hesitate before he put his hand on the middle of her back between her shoulderblades, rubbing gently. “Come on, you’re okay.”

It took a few moments for her to empty her stomach, the odd pink colour of the liquid courtesy of the cocktail she’d drunk; kriffin’ stars, she was a fucking lightweight champion if she couldn’t even hold onto a single Cassandra Sunrise. She heaved and gagged a few times, her face scrunched up in abject misery, and eventually she was just kneeling there panting, trembling like she was about to collapse face first into the mess she’d made. 

“Y’all done?” he asked, patting her between the shoulderblades. At her faint nod, he chuckled. “Well, that was more eventful than I was expecting for an afternoon drink.” 

She promptly burst into tears. 

“Aw, kriff, come on,” he said. She continued to sob. “It’s all good, Sparky, come on.” 

His thighs were beginning to ache from crouching for so long, so he grunted and shifted to his knees, careful not to kneel in the puddle she’d made. “Come on,” he said gently, putting his arm over her shoulder to help her up. 

She didn’t fight him, like he half expected her to, and he almost couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed about that or not. Little Sparky had a bit of a temper, and to see her laid so low that she couldn’t even prod it into life was sort of disheartening. She staggered to her feet when he coaxed her up, wobbling badly; he took her by the shoulders and kept her upright, putting his fingers under her chin to lift her face. She whimpered through the tears and tried to duck down again, but he stayed firm. “Don’t be going all shy on me now,” he muttered, picking up the corner of her scarf and using it to wipe her face clear. Her tears had utterly ruined her carefully applied makeup, but he didn’t think a quick once over with a scarf would be enough to clean that up. “Y’got me to bleed for you, we’re practically old pals now.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered miserably, hiccuping on the tears, “I’m sorry, I’m-”

“You stuck on a loop? Heard you the first time, Sparky.” He threw his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You walking okay?”

She nodded, eyes closed as the tears kept streaming.

He got her back to the ship without incident, miracle of miracles, and tossed her into the shower without further fanfare, fully clothed. He weren’t gonna undress a drunk crewmate, especially not one he’d known less than a day and already had an eventful couple of incidents with.

He stood outside the refresher, the door propped open, listening to the sounds of the water running into the drain and her desperate attempt to keep her crying from growing louder. She was trying to hide it from him, he could tell; he sighed and let his head tip back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he waited. His hand was throbbing like all hell now, the knuckles all stiff and crusted over, and there were a dozen other aches through him reminding him he weren’t too young anymore and really shouldn’t be throwing punches around so freely.

But kriff, what was he supposed to do? Let those dumb shits walk out of there with their smug smiles on their smug faces after letting them off with a slap on the wrist? Rich assholes who thought they could do whatever they wanted without consequence, assuming money could smooth over whatever lives they ruined. 

Kriff, he fucking hated shitheads like that. 

He heard the water turn off, and he rolled his head to the side. “You done in there, or you gone and dissolved or something?” he called.

There was a moment of hesitant silence, and then she sighed quietly. “I’m done,” she said softly.

“You decent?”

“What?”

“Dressed. You got clothes on?”

“Oh. Um, yes.” 

He pushed off the wall and turned in to the refresher, making a scolding sound when he found her dripping and shivering and looking like a half drowned womp rat. “I go all out to save your life and then you go and get yourself dead from pneumonia.”

She promptly started crying again.

“Oh, for- come on, how do you still have any liquid left inside of you to keep crying?” he asked, snatching a towel up from the counter and pushing his sleeves up; she might have flinched slightly when he stepped in close, but she didn’t try to back away or fight him when he started towelling her off.

“Rule number one,” he said firmly, roughly rubbing at her hair to dry it off, “don’t _ever_ trust strangers in a bar. Especially don’t drink anything they give you if you didn’t see where it came from.”

She was still quiet, her expression miserable; she looked like she’d stopped crying though, which was a relief. “But you bought that lady you were talking to a drink,” she said softly, staring at the floor. 

“Yeah, but she saw the bartender make it, and I let her choose what she wanted, which makes a big difference.” She looked like a scolded puppy, and he sighed, settling the towel over her shoulders. “You gotta assume that everyone you meet is gonna have shit intentions, alright?” 

Her fingers clutched at the edge of the towel, as if she wanted to pull it up over her head and hide from him. “I know,” she whispered miserably, still not looking at him. 

“If I hadn’t’ve been there-”

“I _know_ ,” she snarled, the temper rising in her instantly. Her eyes were red rimmed and shining when she glared at him, as if she was barely holding back the tears. “Silly little Bejah, too naive to know what rape is, she should just be grateful that she’s got people far more intelligent than her around her!”

The hair on his arm prickled, as if the air in the room had charged abruptly with the threat of lightning. “Hey, come on now, it’s not like that,” he started, but she cut him off.

“I know everyone thinks I’m just silly and naive and inexperienced,” she said, wiping her eyes furiously even as the tears continued to fall, “and I know I probably should’ve known better, but do you think my life was perfect before the sith took me? Do you think I didn’t have to deal with people wanting to hurt me and- _do things_ to me, since I was a girl?” 

The way she said it, with such bitter resignation, made his cynical old heart break just a little. “Just because you’ve had to deal with them before doesn’t mean you should have to put up with it now,” he said quietly. 

Some of the fight went out of her, and she looked deflated. “I could have taken care of myself,” she whispered, and he couldn’t tell whether she was trying to convince him or herself.

“Yeah, sure, you _definitely_ could’ve taken all three of them.”

The look she gave him made his skin crawl, because it was a look that he saw too often when he looked in the mirror. “You say that like you think I’ve never killed a man before,” she said, as if she was simply commenting on the weather. 

“Y’ever killed a man before?” he asked bluntly, because that seemed to be what she wanted him to ask.

She laughed miserably, her eyes full of tears as she looked away. “I’ve never been to a bar,” she said instead. “Never had a- a drink bought for me. I just... wanted to feel normal.” 

He sighed, suddenly feeling like a colossal asshole. “We’ll go out to see the snow tomorrow, okay?” he said, draping the towel over her shoulders. “We’ll get a speeder up to the mountains and you can go roll in it to your heart’s content.” 

The hesitant hope in her eyes might’ve killed a lesser man. Good thing he wasn’t a lesser man. “You promise?”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t go telling everyone the terrifying pirate Revel is taking you tobogganing, man’s got a reputation to uphold.”


	4. Chapter 4

Andronikos was coming to realise fairly quickly that he had a bit of a problem- namely, that he was attracted to Bejah.

And wasn’t _that_ weird, because since when was attraction ever a problem for him? He liked sex, he liked spending his time in the company of attractive individuals male or female or otherwise, and he _knew_ that he was appealing to look at. He liked to think he was pretty good in bed too, and that he left his partners satisfied with the experience. If it were anyone else he had an interest in, he would’ve wined and wooed them, turning up the charm until they were putty in his hands and they could spend a few good hours fucking one another senseless. 

It wasn’t that she wasn’t a desirable woman, because like... _fuck_. He’d already wanked off to thoughts of her within hours of their first meeting. She was fucking gorgeous, from her dark brown eyes that a man could drown in, to the way the dark curls of her hair seemed to frame her face like it was a goddamn portrait, even when she was up to her elbows in engine grease or sweaty from dancing around the engine bay with her pet droid again. 

Kriff, the dancing was adorable. 

It was a lot more than that, to be honest; lot more complicated. Just ‘cause his dick was keen on the thought didn’t mean he wanted to go charging on in making things messy. She was young, for starters- although not the youngest, sure, and her not knowing how old she was for certain made it a little messier again. If she thought she was twenty-one, that made her at least a decade his junior and that made her a little more impressionable; certainly the bullshit in the bar on their first day on Alderaan made it abundantly clear that there were aspects of life she was naive to, regardless of whether she made huffy little comments about having killed men in the past. 

She was a sweet young thing, and he was not the sort of guy that sweet young things needed to be spending time with. Bad enough already that she was stuck on a ship with two sith, even if she claimed to find them okay company, she didn’t need to go adding ‘ _murderous mentally unbalanced pirate_ ’ to that list too. 

It didn’t help that sometimes she looked at him with the corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled, something confused and curious in her expression as she looked at him. Like she was thinking of him and wondering about him and kriffin’ god damn it all. 

Andronikos Revel did _not_ do _smitten_. 

The days on Alderaan trickled into weeks, as the sith brats tried to awkwardly negotiate the pitfalls of Thul politics. Kallathe, true to her threats on their first day, seemed determined to dazzle and intimidate half of the noble houses, throwing her weight around in matters of the civil war to whoever would listen. Kaltix seemed to be sensible enough to be more subtle about things, keeping his head down while he tried to negotiate with Elana Thul for the information they needed. 

They’d been there for a little over a week when the first fractures began to show. The sith kids were off doing their thing, and Bejah and Casey were somewhere on board wasting their time how they saw fit. Andronikos had been going through some of the crap in the cargo hold, debating whether or not he’d get in the shit for throwing some of the odds and ends out to make more space. 

Look at him- the fearsome pirate Revel, doing an inventory check. 

He was hauling some stuff up to the med bay when he heard a conversation, the words offered in hushed tones that were clearly meant to keep it from his attention.

“She doesn’t mean to be cruel,” he heard Bejah saying softly, the pleading tone to her voice making him pause in the hallway. “She just... she doesn’t think a lot of things through.”

“It’s okay, darlin’,” came another voice, Casey this time, and his curiosity was piqued enough that he turned back towards the crew quarters and stuck his head around the doorway, leaning against the frame. Casey was in the process of unpacking a whole bunch of crap that was dumped on one of the spare bunks. “I’m not hurt, really.” 

“I just wanted... I didn’t want you to be hurting,” Bejah said quietly.

“‘s going on?” he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door. 

Neither of them seemed to have heard him approach, if the way they jumped guiltily was any indication; Casey stared at him for a moment, that stubborn set to her jaw that he recognized so well when she was getting ready to dig her heels in and cause a fuss, and Bejah wouldn’t even look at him, hugging her arms around herself as she shuffled her feet. 

“Well that’s pretty suspicious,” he drawled, and Casey let out a huff of frustration.

“I’m moving my shit in here, Nikki, what’s it look like?” She gestured to the pile of clothes on the bunk. “You gotta problem with that?” 

“Bit aggressive there, Rix.”

“Yeah, well, I know you, and if you even dream of saying ‘ _I told you so_ ’-”

“Why would I say that?”

She straightened, hands on her hips as she pursed her lips and breathed rather loudly through her nose for a moment, as if reining in her temper. “I don’t feel comfortable staying with Kallathe no more-”

He felt his lips twitch with the need to smile triumphantly.

“-and that right there, that’s why I didn’t wanna fucking say anything,” she said, forcefully tossing her things into the hatch beneath the bunk. “Because I knew you were gonna be a fucking ass about it, Nikki-”

“I ain’t said anything!”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Oh, so now you’re a mind reader, Rix? Them magic powers the sith have rub off on you, or something?” 

Bejah’s eyes were wide and she was staring at the floor, frozen, as if she was desperately hoping they’d forgotten she was there. 

Casey kicked the hatch shut with her foot and turned to face him. “We weren’t anything but casual, Nikki, so I ain’t hurt by her taking up with someone else. I just don’t wanna be hanging around in her bed while she’s off fucking someone else, like I’m a fucking side piece or something.” 

That gave him pause, and he felt his smug mood slip. “She’s cheating on you?” 

“Oh, for-” Casey threw her hands up in the air. “We were just having _fun_ , Nikki, dunno if you remember what that is at all, going for your whole brooding pirate routine and all. She got me off Tatooine, and she gave me a few great orgasms, but I ain’t looking to settle down and marry her or anything. Fucking stars above.”

Still. “Did she even give you the courtesy of talking to you before she jumped into someone else’s bed?” 

“She doesn’t mean to be hurtful,” Bejah said, her tone cringing even as she tried to defend her. “She was kept locked away her whole life, and abused, sometimes she doesn’t act appropriately-”

“Look, Sparky, if someone steps on my foot and breaks my toe, just because they didn’t realise they did it doesn’t change the fact that they did,” he said, before turning back to Casey. “Fucking dumb of you to take up with a sith in the first place, Rix. I won’t say ‘ _I told you so_ ’, but at least you got off easy. You could’ve been killed.” 

Bejah couldn’t have looked more hurt if he’d slapped her. She dropped her gaze again and ducked her chin, murmuring a quiet “excuse me” as she all but barrelled past him and down the hallway, back towards the questionable safety of her engine room. When he looked back towards Casey, the look she was giving him made him blink in confusion. 

“What?”

She shook her head, eyebrows raised as if she was questioning just how dumb he actually was. “You’re a clueless fucking shit sometimes, Nikki,” she said, something lofty in her tone. 

He didn’t like being called dumb, even by someone he trusted like Casey. “You maybe wanna explain that, Rix, or you just like throwing around insults?”

“It keeps you grounded,” she said, turning back to the mess on her bunk. “You better not fucking snore still.”

____

He made good on his promise to take Bejah up to the snow a couple of days after the weird confrontation in the crew quarters. She’d avoided him for a day or two after, less chatty than she’d been previously- if such a thing was possible, given how shy she was to start with. It’d left him with only Casey for company, but that wasn’t such a bad thing; all teasing aside, she was actually a pretty good friend, when she wasn’t deliberately walking over and farting on his side of the cabin. 

Sometimes he laughed, actually laughed, and it felt like old times. Like he hadn’t just spent time being tortured in a sith prison, or developing claustrophobia after being trapped in a tiny tube in space for two weeks. Like he was still the cocky, overconfident, self-absorbed shit he’d been back before they’d picked up those dumb fucking artifacts. 

It was good to laugh. He could pretend sometimes it didn’t bother him. 

He found Bejah sitting on the floor of the engine bay, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth and a fierce look of concentration on her face as she worked on the droid draped over her lap. She had a pair of safety goggles pushed up onto her forehead, and there was a little smudge of grease across her nose that only made her look more adorable. 

He felt something flutter in his chest at the sight of it, and he had to bite his tongue to hold back the besotted grin. 

He couldn’t see what she was doing, not with her hands buried in the chassis of the droid, but there was a brief flare of sparks and she squeaked, her eyes squinting shut to shield them from the bright.

“That’s what the goggles are for, Sparky,” he called, and the startled look of guilt on her face as she realised she had an audience was cute. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Bejah smiled weakly at him, rubbing the back of her hand under her eye as if trying to wipe away sweat; all it did was add a new grease smear to her skin. Kriff, why was everything she did so damn cute? “I doubt you’d find an audience for your gossip,” she said, her speech back to being somewhat stiltedly formal. He was pretty sure by this point that Basic wasn’t her first language- the way she paused sometimes before talking or answering, like she was taking a moment to process precisely what had been said to her and how best to respond, was something he’d come across plenty in his years of travel. It sort of raised the question as to what her first language actually was, though, given how widespread Imperial Basic was amongst human populations; granted, there were plenty of places that held on tight to their local dialects, but they were becoming fewer and further apart. The Empire didn’t tend to like a lot of individualism, or opportunities for people to deviate from the Imperial norm. “Kallathe and Kaltix aren’t usually all that interested in how I spend my time.” 

She said it so bluntly, as if it wasn’t an extraordinarily lonely thing to admit to, that for a moment he could only stare. It was only when her expression fell slightly that he realised he was staring, and he’d embarrassed her with his silence. He cleared his throat to cover the awkwardness of the moment. “So,” he said instead, “I figure I owe you a trip to the snow.”

She couldn’t hide the way her interest spiked immediately, her eyes lighting up before she had a chance to temper her reaction; Andronikos found himself grinning in response, even as she seemed to realise how obvious she’d been and ducked her head. “You don’t have to do that,” she said hurriedly, as if she was expecting it to be a joke. “It’s okay, I know you were just saying it the other day to make me feel better.” 

“Oh, you do, do you?” 

“I- yes? I know you didn’t want to, or I mean, don’t want to, and it’s okay, it’s fine, I’ll just go sometime by myself-”

He snorted in amusement. “Are you gonna remember to breathe sometime in there?” he asked, unable to help himself from chuckling when her mouth snapped closed. “I made a promise, didn’t I, Sparky?”

The hope in her eyes was almost physically painful to look upon. “I didn’t want to be an annoyance,” she whispered, and kriff if that weren’t one of the most tragic things he’d ever heard in his life. 

“You ain’t ever an annoyance,” he said; she bit her lip and looked down, and it stirred a peculiar longing in him that wasn’t quite hunger but definitely yearned towards her pretty damn strongly. “Come on. I’m sick of being cooped up in here waiting for the brats to get back. Let’s get you up the mountain.” 

She surged to her feet and then let out a distressed noise when the droid on her lap went tumbling into the floor. “Oh, stars, I’m so sorry-”

“I don’t think it can hear you,” he said, shaking his head in amusement as he turned and headed down the corridor. “Get yourself rugged up! We’ll leave in five.”

There was another crash from the engine bay. “Oh, _stars_.”

He was chuckling to himself as he dressed for colder temperatures- that was a novelty, after Tatooine. He figured since he didn’t actually plan on going near the snow himself he didn’t have to go overboard, and he settled for a leather jacket and gloves, stuffing a pair of thicker mittens into his pocket just in case. He had a bland tan scarf to round out the affair, stopping for a moment to check himself out in the ‘fresher mirror; he’d lost a bit of weight on Tatooine and in prison, and it showed a little in his face and his shoulders, but otherwise he looked good. 

But then, a well-made leather jacket could make just about anyone look good.

When he made his way back out to the main room, he was pleasantly surprised to find Bejah already waiting for him, hopping excitedly from foot to foot. In comparison to the rather neutral colours he’d picked for his ensemble, she was a literal explosion of colour, from the artfully painted blue and silver on her face, to the carefully coordinated outfit that seemed to move through the various shades of blue without once looking jarring. He wasn’t sure if the effect was painful to look at or remarkably creative. 

He reached up and tugged playfully on the end of her scarf when he joined her, admiring the silver embroidery and realising now that he was closer that the swirls in her makeup matched the swirls in the stitching. Artsy _and_ clever to boot. “Y’all set?” 

She nodded eagerly. “I mean, you really don’t have to do this for me, I’ve gone exploring by myself plenty of times before,” she started, but he shook his head.

“Listen, Sparky, a promise is a promise, and honestly I’m gonna go stir crazy if I sit around this damn ship much longer.”

“I went exploring on Nar Shaddaa by myself a couple of months back,” she said, all but skipping along beside him as they made their way down the ramp and into the hangar bay. Somehow the thought of her wandering around staring wide eyed at the depravity and filth that made up the Smuggler’s Moon made his skin crawl, and he had the fiercest desire to snarl at the freight handler who smiled at her lasciviously as they walked past. “That was exciting.”

“How did you wander around that shit hole and not ever find your way into a bar?” he asked.

“They looked too scary, they were very loud. I just found a vending machine and got a soda, and then someone tried to mug me.”

She said it so brightly, as if it wasn’t very probably a confession of violence that had been held over her, that he nearly stumbled. “You- _what?_ ”

“Someone tried to mug me,” she repeated with a shrug. “They weren’t very good at it, they were very drunk. I gave them some credits and they went and fell asleep next to a bin.” 

“You...” He wanted to rub at his eyes wearily. “You gave the mugger some credits.”

“Of course. They looked very hungry, and I didn’t need them. I asked them to put the vibroknife away and they did, and they didn’t hurt me.” She paused. “You’re not happy with me.” 

He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. “You don’t just _give_ someone mugging you your credits,” he said. “What if they’d decided they wanted the rest of your money?”

“Well, I might have given it to them, I don’t know.” 

“But they pulled a _knife_ on you!” 

He felt the stillness that fell over her, like it was a physical thing brushing up against him. “Is this another one of those ‘ _poor little naive Bejah_ ’ things?” she asked, her tone distinctly frosty. “They didn’t hurt me, and I didn’t have to hurt them, so why is it a bad thing that I gave them credits? They looked like they needed the help.” 

“Because...” He closed his eyes and fought off a groan. “Because there are _bad_ people in the galaxy, Sparky, and one of them will hurt you one day.” 

She was quiet for a moment, walking along at his side as they approached the speeder pad. “Well, I suppose you’d know better than me when it comes to bad people, wouldn’t you Pirate?” 

He probably deserved that. 

The speeder pad had a couple of different models on display, some of which were clearly meant for fancier folk than themselves; he wandered along the line, looking them over, checking for obvious signs of wear. 

“Can I assist you, sir?”

“Looking for something to take us up the hill,” he said, jerking his head towards the nearby mountains as he turned towards the robotic voice. There was a sales droid standing to attention behind him, and Bejah’s bad mood had already perked up again in the presence of the mech. He’d have to ask her sometime what the deal was with her and droids- maybe sometime when she was in a better mood, and not so inclined to snap at him. “No bells and whistles, just something fast, equipped for cold weather.”

“We have several models that would meet such requirements, sir. If you would be so inclined, I would be happy to show you the benefits of each such model, to determine which would be best suited for your needs.”

Stars kriffin’ save him from sales droids; in the next line over, he spotted one with a relatively bright blue paint job, the hue almost identical to Bejah’s jacket. “What about that one?” 

The droid twisted to look, and Bejah turned to see where he was pointing as well; when she saw the speeder she did a double take, her gaze flicking back to him quickly. Finding him watching her clearly wasn’t what she’d been expecting, because she glanced away just as quickly, flustered and grinning shyly. 

“That particular model is compatible with cold weather travel requirements, and has a top speed of-”

“It’ll do,” he said, pulling out his credit chip. “Y’all take charge, right?” 

Bejah didn’t say anything to him about his choice of speeder, but it was clearly enough to get him back in her good graces. She was near to bouncing with excitement again as the droid released it from the mag-locks and let Andronikos guide it out to the mount station; the droid was prattling on about safety features and offers for long term hire, and he tuned it out. 

Sliding into the rider’s seat, he straddled the speeder as he got a feel for it between his legs. The look on her face when he glanced back at her made him want to get back up and strut again. “Well, come on then. Get on.”

Bejah bit her lip as she averted her eyes. “I- where do I sit?”

“Just slide on behind me, Sparky,” he said, slapping his ass for comical effect. “Plenty of room back there.”

“You’re... you’re sure?”

“You can sit on my lap if you’d prefer,” he drawled, pleased to see that it flustered her more.

She was almost dainty about the way she approached the speeder, her hands settling first on his shoulder as she attempted to vault her leg over it. She fell against him slightly, murmuring an embarrassed apology as she found her balance again and dropped down onto the back of the speeder. Her hands slid around his waist, and her thighs went either side of his hips as she scooched in as close to him as she could; she was pressed up so tight against his back that he could feel his skin breaking out in shivers at the closeness. Kriffin’ stars, he was trying to be good about this all, but it was damned hard to concentrate when she rested her head between his shoulderblades and hooked her hands together over his stomach. 

“Y’all settled back there?” he called over his shoulder, his voice cracking ever so slightly; he grimaced and made a show of coughing into his fist, as if he’d needed to clear it in the first place. 

“I’ve never been on a speeder bike!” she said, her voice trembling as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be excited or terrified. 

“What, never?” He activated the repulsors, and the bike kicked off the ground by about a foot. She squealed, and her grip around his waist tightened like a vice. “What’d you do, grow up under a rock?” 

“Just about,” she said cryptically, her delighted shriek of laughter as the speeder lunged forward drowning out any response he might have made. 

He wouldn’t ever be good enough to race professionally, but he had a trick or two up his sleeve when it came to racing speeders, and with the open fields laid out before them outside the city, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. They went flying over the grass, the wind whipping over them as he opened up the throttle; behind him, Bejah was laughing, as if the joy of the moment was just overwhelming and she had to let it out somehow. 

He took them high up into the air when they drew closer to the foothills, soaring over the treetops as Bejah shrieked in delight and clung closer to him. He was enjoying the way her hands pressed into his chest and belly far too much. He took a chance on diving down into a gorge, the repulsors leaving waves on the surface of the river as the engines echoed off the stone walls back at them. There was a waterfall up ahead, not entirely frozen despite the cold, and as he angled the speeder upwards the mist made the front of his jacket uncomfortably wet.

But she was warm against his back, so it weren’t really all bad. 

The snowfields were about a half hour outside of town, halfway up one of the larger mountains in the area; the Thuls had a quaint little ski village set up, complete with luxury villas and boutique stores that charged a million times more for general goods than you’d get back in the city. Going for the whole winter getaway aesthetic, as if they didn’t have snow just about year round in these parts anyway. 

He couldn’t be sure over the roar of the wind as they raced up the mountainside, but he could’ve sworn he heard Bejah gasp the moment they crested a rise and saw the snowfields spread out before them like a white blanket dropped on the hill. The speeder pad was down near the town square, right near some kind of artsy sculpture that was probably supposed to represent resilience or courage or some other shit; he weren’t much for interpretive art to be honest. 

Bejah, bless her soul, was near to bouncing on the seat behind him, which was not really- aw, hell, he couldn’t lie to himself, having her all but rub up against him was really fucking arousing. He tried to grit his teeth and ignore it, but a man had his limits. 

He brought the speeder in slow over the roofs of the villas, gliding to a stop on the speeder pad; Bejah all but tumbled off the seat before he’d even got them at halt, scrambling to her feet as if she was about to go sprinting off in five directions at once. 

“Easy there,” he called, setting the speeder to neutral as he coasted it over towards a bay reserved for smaller vehicles. 

“Oh, aren’t you _lovely!_ ” he heard her say, at the same time that a metallic voice said “Welcome to Jhulla Village, alpine ski resort and luxury getaway within convenient travel time of the Thul capital. How may I direct you today?” 

Locking down the speeder, he turned back to find Bejah staring raptly at a droid- of course, what else could have delighted her more than the snow- and resisted the urge to sigh. “Weather warnings?” he asked, tugging his thicker gloves out of his pockets now that he didn’t need to worry about the mittens affecting his driving. 

“There is a fourteen point seven percent chance of further snowfall this afternoon, with humidity at nineteen percent. There is a wind chill factor of-” 

“Got it, thanks,” he said, tugging his scarf back into place where it had gone askew during the flight. 

“What power source do you use,” Bejah asked, her hand hovering over the droid’s chassis as if she wanted to touch it, “and how does it function efficiently at the higher altitude, with the lower temperatures and air pressure? Does the cold drain your battery life, or do you have insulation in place to combat that? How does the insulation contribute to internal overheating?”

Andronikos didn’t know whether to sigh or laugh. “Okay, let’s leave the poor thing alone,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and very firmly steering her down the ramp towards street level. “We didn’t come all the way up here for you to go coo at droids again, you could’ve done that back in town.” 

“But I haven’t _seen_ cold weather droids before,” she said, almost pleadingly. She tried to glance back over her shoulder at it, but he kept her marching forward. “How do they deal with their anti-freezing tech creating a buildup of condensation, I just want to see-”

“Mmm, sure, because ain’t nothing like stopping to dissect a droid that ain’t belong to us in the middle of the town square,” he said. 

“But I-” She let out a squawk as her foot skidded from under her slightly, and the way she lunged to grab at him and cling to him in a deathgrip had him howling with laughter. 

“Roads get a bit icy in the snow, Sparky,” he said knowingly, grinning broadly. “Gotta watch where you put your feet.”

She swallowed noticeably, nodding with eyes wide as she stared at the treacherous ground. 

“You gonna let go of me there, Sparky, or we just gonna stand here?” 

She glanced up at him, her lip caught between her teeth. “We can, um... where do we go, exactly?”

He reached over and hooked her arm through his, patting her hand as he let it rest in the crook of his elbow. “Just about anywhere you want,” he said, taking a step forward and relieved when she followed along with him, her fingers just slightly digging in to the fabric of his jacket. “There’ll be supervised fields over there,” he said, indicating where the towers of the hover-lifts could be seen over the roofs, ferrying thrillseekers up to the heights to race back down on turbo-skis and hover-boards.

“So, we go over there?” 

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he said, dropping the endearment without even thinking twice. The moment it passed his lips, he could have kicked himself, and he felt Bejah tense beside him; he wouldn’t have even questioned it, were he talking to anyone else. That sort of casual affection came far too easily to him, most of the time, and most folk didn’t even blink at it. 

Bejah weren’t most folk, though, and she was different for a lot of reasons.

She didn’t say anything about the endearment, but he could tell she was flustered; she kept her gaze far away from him, looking out towards the snow proper. There’d been piles of filthy slush down in the city, days old ice pushed up against the walls of the thoroughfares to give the speeders and the pedestrians room to travel. She’d veered towards them a couple of times, eyes alight with curiosity, and he’d carefully steered her away from them with words of warning about runoff from the roads and oil and grease and animal waste and drunk nobles who didn’t think nothing of stopping to piss against whatever wall they liked. 

She hadn’t gone near them after that, so this was well and truly her first encounter with the snow. 

They made their way through the small township and towards the snow, and she was all but vibrating on his arm as they drew closer. She kept letting out little giggly noises, as if she was trying to restrain herself and failing, and after she did it for the third time he couldn’t help but laugh in response. “Go on,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “Before you explode or something.”

She bit her lip as if embarrassed, but she still let go of his arm and dashed forward the last half a block, disappearing around the corner with laughter trailing after her. When he rounded the corner after her, she was already a dozen yards away, the snow kicking up under her boots as she ran. Before he could warn her about taking it easy, she charged straight at a rather large mound of snow and threw herself straight into it.

For a moment, his heart lurched up into his throat in a panic at the thought that she might have just thrown herself head first at a snow covered boulder, but after a moment she rolled over and sat up, laughing uproariously as she picked up handfuls of snow and tossed it across herself.

Forcing himself to relax, he returned the grin, hands stuffed deep into his pockets against the chill as he stood nearby and watched. She flopped backwards again into it, laughing to herself, and he couldn’t help but laugh in response, shaking his head with a wry smile. 

The crisp white of the snow against her dark skin was extraordinary, and when she sat up again it was all through her hair, and on her eyelashes. She looked like some kind of ethereal winter sprite, dusted with snowflakes while she laughed and stole men’s hearts. 

She looked like she was about to burst with joy. “It’s so _cold!_ ” she laughed, scooping up a handful and tossing it into the air; it rained back down on her with soft splattering noises, and she shrieked in delight as a piece of it went down the back of her neck. The way she wriggled was particularly provocative-

_Kriffin’ fucking stars, leave the kid alone to enjoy the snow and stop panting after her._

He averted his gaze, clearing his throat as he stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and squinted against the glare on the snow. “You weren’t expecting cold?” he asked conversationally instead.

“I didn’t really ever know what cold was,” she said, a little rueful. “Not until the sith took me away.”

A sneaky little insight into her past, the first she’d offered up other than her vague threats about having killed people before. “Weren’t cold where you grew up?”

She shrugged faintly, letting a pile of snow trickle between her fingers and down onto her lap. Stars, she was gonna be fuckin’ cold by the time she was done frolicking, at this rate. “Maybe it was, on other parts of the planet I was from.” She paused, and she laughed. “It’s still hard to think about that, there being a whole planet I was from.”

Bit of a weird observation. “Come again?”

“I was-” She hesitated, as if visibly struggling with whether to disclose it to him or not. “I was kept in a factory. I hadn’t even seen the sky until the sith took me away.” She paused again, and when she spoke it was much softer than before. “I thought snow and rain were just stories my mother told me to give me things to dream about.”

 _Oh, stars._

Guilt surged up within him at the innocence of that statement, and the trust she showed him by offering him that little insight into what must have been an excruciatingly painful life. Kriff, by the sounds of it, getting out with the sith almost sounded like an improvement- and here he was leering after her, like he had any business trying to drag her back down again when she’d just found her freedom. “Your ma tell good stories, then?” he asked quietly, nudging a clump of snow with his boot. 

“She told me _wonderful_ stories,” she said wistfully, staring off into the distance. “All about ships that could sail between the stars, and noble warriors with magic, and princesses and pirates and monsters and true love.” 

“Pirates, eh?” he asked teasingly. “Do I live up to expectations, then?”

“I was expecting a monkey-lizard,” she said, without missing a beat. “All the terrible pirate captains had a monkey-lizard, in the stories.”

“Oh, so I’m _terrible_ , now, am I?” 

“You are the Dread Pirate Revel, are you not? Scourge of the Outer Rim, Terror of the Stars?” 

She’d said it teasingly, but for some reason the words caught like barbs- he _was_ dreadful, and he _was_ terrible. Used to suit him just fine that people saw him that way, but these days it just left a bitter taste in his mouth. Terrible men deserved the bullshit he’d endured these past few years, mutiny and isolation and claustrophobia and torture. Terrible men weren’t good for much more than that. 

Terrible men were those ones back in the bar, who’d planned to drug her and use her because they saw her as a thing, not a person. 

He didn’t want to be a terrible man anymore. 

“Andronikos?”

He shook himself, pulling himself away from his maudlin thoughts; her brow was creased in concern as she looked up at him from the snowbank, her eyes uncertain, and he realised he’d left her hanging for an answer once again. She had a habit of making him turn introspective. 

He offered her a rueful grin. “That the first time you’ve said my name?” he said teasingly, prompting her eyes to widen and her chin to duck as the shyness overtook her again. “All it took to get you to talk normal to me was to drop you in a snowbank?” 

She laughed. “It’s colder than I was expecting,” she admitted. “My fingers are aching a little.”

“Well, then, the best cure for that is one of them fancy hot cocoas,” he said. “Y’ever had one of those?”

She shook her head.

“What, never? And you being a marshmallow fiend and all?”

She perked up so brightly that he laughed. “They have marshmallows?”

“You put ‘em in the the cocoa, and they melt and go all gooey,” he said. At the enraptured look on her face he laughed again, shaking his head. “That a yes on that, then?”

“Please?”

The way she smiled at him, like he was offering her the world and not just a damned hot drink, made his knees weak. “You’re gonna have to get out of that snowbank if you wanna get a drink,” he said pointedly.

He held out a hand to her, to help her to her feet; she bit her lip again, like she had back on the Fury, and this time there was a little more heat in him in response to it. 

_Down, boy._

Wiggling his fingers pointedly in her direction, she giggled and reached up to take his hand; he heaved, not with any great difficulty given that she still couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds soaking wet, and she came lurching up out of the snowbank, stumbling to get her feet out under her-

-and straight into his arms. 

They were both laughing as she tried to right herself, her hands on his chest as she tried to find her balance. His hands, by comparison, had gone right to her hips to hold her steady, one sneaking around towards her back. Her eyes were sparkling with sheer joy when she tipped her head back to look up at him, downright tiny next to him- and he weren’t winning no height competitions any time soon either- and it felt damn good to have her there in his arms, snow in her hair and joy in her eyes and so goddamn beautiful that he felt lightheaded from it. 

And more than that, he knew that she could see it too- that curious, quizzical look came over her, like he’d seen a few times back on the Fury, and her gaze flickered briefly to his mouth.

Stars help him. 

“Andronikos?” she asked quietly, almost a whisper.

“Yeah, Sparky?” 

She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who saw the Princess Bride reference, be honest


	5. Chapter 5

Andronikos Revel liked to think of himself as a sexually confident individual, well practiced in the arts of the bedroom and seduction- but when Bejah pressed her mouth to his, with no tact or skill but just an obvious desire for him, he felt like a knock-kneed boy again, thrilled and terrified by his very first kiss. It was very clearly _her_ first kiss, or close enough to that she hadn’t quite worked out what to do with her mouth beyond putting it on his. He hadn’t ever really thought that innocence could be seductive- he weren’t one for going out and deflowering maidens, like some expected of pirates, he liked his partners good and enthusiastic, thanks- but there was something so earnest and so humbling about the innocence with which she tried to kiss him that it literally took his breath away. 

_Tell her to stop_ , the sensible part of his brain bellowed, even as his eyes fluttered closed and he returned the kiss. He felt her hands sneak up towards his shoulders, a breathy sigh escaping from her when he changed the angle slightly, slanting his mouth over hers. Kriff, it was downright tame, no teeth or tongue or grasping hands, just... gentle. Soft. 

He didn’t tell her to stop. 

Instead he let it play out, aware that at some point his hands took on a mind of their own and slid up her back proper, keeping her pressed against him; he was really fucking annoyed about how many layers they were both wearing, that it kept them apart in a small way. He could feel her trembling, and stars above what he wouldn’t give to see the way her dark skin rippled with goosebumps as he traced gentle shapes over her body-

_Getting a bit ahead of yourself, ass._

They pulled apart ever so slightly when she needed to catch her breath, foreheads resting together and their noses brushing. Her nose was cold from where she’d been rolling in the snow, and for some reason that made him want to grin goofily. 

“I...” She seemed to finally come back to herself, and realise what she’d done, if the sharp intake of breath was anything to go by. “I should have asked-”

He kissed her, and she sighed in relief against his mouth, her fingers grabbing at the collar of his jacket as if to pull him closer. “Apology accepted,” he murmured, very briefly closing his lips over her lower lip until she shivered. 

This kiss lasted a little longer than the first, and he could feel her trembling by the time they wound down again. It still weren’t nothing sordid, nothing wild, but stars above and below was she sending his thoughts into a tailspin. 

She licked her lips, and he almost growled hungrily; she must have seen it in his eyes, though, because she couldn’t mask the surprised flicker of interest when she was standing so close. “What...” She seemed a little breathless. “What happens now?” 

What he wanted to do was to push her up against a nearby wall and feast on her mouth until she was damn near boneless with need. What he wanted to do was to charge into one of them nearby boutique villas and slap his credit chip down on the counter and demand a room with no interruptions for at least two days. What he wanted was to devour her, to have every inch of her that she felt free to give, and to leave them both exhausted and sore and satiated after days of brilliant, mindless sex. 

Instead he smiled. “Whatever you want, Sparky,” he said, reaching up to brush an unmelted chip of ice out of her hair. “Promised you a marshmallow in your hot cocoa and all, we could start with that.”

“Oh, I-” She bit her lip, and then laughed. “I meant, um, us? What does...” She laughed again, trailing off awkwardly. “I haven’t ever done this before. What does- what does a kiss mean?” 

The old fight-or-flight instinct tried to rouse its ugly head in him, the hatred of being tied down and kept in place against his wishes, without the freedom to come and go as he pleased. And he didn’t want to be held back, or tied down, that was true- the last year had driven that home to him even more, that he needed his freedom and his solitude because sticking around in one place felt a little bit too much like the two weeks he’d been trapped in a narrow metal tube in the black emptiness of space, not knowing if he could ever get out or stretch or breathe fresh air or if this was it for him. 

Terrifying pirates weren’t s’posed to be afraid of small spaces, or pretty girls asking shyly what a kiss meant. 

“A kiss can mean...” He pushed back the fear. “It can mean we’re friends, or that you wanna get a little closer-”

“I’ve watched holos,” she whispered, clearly excited. “Does it... um, are we- dating?” 

He couldn’t help himself- he laughed, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he told himself pointedly she didn't mean porn like his filthy thoughts had first jumped to. “What do you want it to be, sweetheart?” he asked.

She ducked her head down under his chin, and he could almost feel her face burning from the blush. “I don’t _know_ ,” she said, clearly embarrassed; she hadn’t let go of his collar yet, still clinging to him like she had during the kiss. 

Bless her. “How ‘bout this then,” he said, grinning madly against her hair. “How ‘bout we go get that drink, and stuff you full of marshmallows, and we can talk a bit about nothing in particular, see how that goes. Yeah?” 

He heard her laugh softly. “Yeah?”

“That a yes?” he asked teasingly. “Was it?” She giggled, and he couldn’t resist the need to hear more of it; she was squirming in his arms as he half tickled her. “Was it a yes?” 

“Yes, aha!” She was laughing along with him, and he felt like some punchdrunk kid again, giddy from how stupid happy he felt having a pretty girl in his arms. “Yes, Nikos, it was yes!”

Huh, he could definitely get used to hearing her breathlessly shouting his name. 

But then she was kissing him again, her enthusiasm making up for the clumsiness of it, and she was laughing and he was laughing and stars, they probably looked a damn spectacle. Wrapped around each other and half falling over in the snow, howling like they’d heard the best damn joke in the galaxy. 

Honestly, he hadn’t seen this coming a year ago. To think that he might be happy again, after the torture and the captivity and the mutiny... 

He pulled away with difficulty- more difficult again by the way she whimpered softly in protest at his retreat- and chuckled. “Come on, Sparky,” he said, tucking her under his arm and steering her away from the snowfields. “Drinks first. Before you freeze.”

She was shivering as she nuzzled into his side. “I’m not that cold.”

“Bullshit you ain’t. I felt your nose.” 

There were a couple of open front stores and cafes along the edge of the snowfields, for renting equipment and shit, and there was one little booth in particular that had a glowing sign in the shape of a steaming mug. There was a couple of outdoor benches, all of them clear of snow, and a few of them had other folk at, clutching drinks of their own or sitting to adjust their turbo-skis. 

“What’s your poison?” he asked as they came to a stop before the booth; there were colourful boards across the top of the counter, proclaiming the various flavours of cocoa and syrups you could add. 

“Pardon?”

“Your drink. You ain’t had cocoa before? You want something fancy or you want a good old classic?”

She was silent for a second as she stared at the menus, and then her chin dropped, her gaze very clearly switching to the ground. He could physically feel her mood change. “I, um. I don’t know, I don’t mind. You pick.” 

“What, you don’t even wanna look at what they got?” 

“Just-” She clearly went to snap something, and stopped herself at the last moment. “That one you said before, just with the marshmallow. That’ll be fine.” 

Perplexed by the abrupt change in her mood, he fought the urge to sigh. “Okay, Sparky,” he said, turning to the serving droid behind the counter. Stars, she hadn’t even perked up to coo at the droid, what the hell had gotten to her so fast? “Two classics, extra marshmallows.”

He didn’t push her to explain what’d made her cranky, and they stood in relative silence as they waited for the drinks. His eyes crinkled in amusement when he saw her eyes light up at the marshmallows, and he saw the exact moment that she caught a hint of the smell. “ _Oh_ ,” she breathed, clearly enraptured. “Is that- does it taste like that too?” 

Andronikos winked at her. “Better,” he said. 

They made their way over to an empty table overlooking the snow, drinks in hand, and he stopped to watch her as she took her first tentative sip. “Careful now, it’s hot,” he warned. 

Her entire demeanour changed as it hit her tongue- she looked like she’d discovered paradise. “Oh stars,” she whispered, her eyes impossibly huge, “can I have this instead of food everyday?”

He threw his head back and laughed, smug as fuck at how bewildered and overjoyed she seemed to be at the treat. A snow day and a cocoa with marshmallows, who would’ve thought this would be one of his more successful dates?

_Are we dating?_

Her words came back to him, and he cleared his throat, covering his discomfort by taking a swig of his own cocoa. He would’ve liked to have added a dash of whiskey to his, but he weren’t sure what the rules were about public consumption of alcohol; last thing he wanted was to offend some delicate noble’s sensibilities and get thrown off the mountain by some hulking security droid. That might’ve been a standard afternoon for him once, but he didn’t really think that’d go down well with Bejah. 

“So, um...” Bejah licked her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. “I don’t actually know much about you. Well, except that you’re a pirate. Or, were a pirate, I guess.”

He laughed, leaning forward on his elbows. “Resisted the urge to look me up on the holonet, did ya? Haven’t gone hunting for tales of my sordid exploits?” 

She looked startled, and then looked away guiltily. “No, I- no. I didn’t even think of looking on the holonet, not that I-” She bit her lip. “No, I didn’t. Is Andronikos your real name?” 

“Sure is. Is Bejah yours?”

“Yes,” she said instantly. “It’s what I remember my mother calling me. Before she- um...”

He could tell immediately what the end of that sentence was without her having to say it, and he decided to try and steer the conversation back to safer skies. “You got an old man? Siblings?”

Bejah shrugged. “I don’t know who my father was,” she said. “My mother never seemed to be close to anyone, so I don’t know if he died or was sold or whether she, um.” She rubbed awkwardly at the side of her neck. “Sometimes the slaves could bargain for extra rations or clothes if they did things, for the foremen. I don’t know if that’s how it happened.” 

His skin crawled at the implication, and he could’ve kicked himself for making the conversation worse. “And you been with the brats for about a year or so?”

She brightened visibly, clearly happy to be turning away from the topic. “Yes! Yes, I have.” She shuffled the mug around in between her hands, taking another slow sip. “And, um, you? You aren’t from Tatooine, I suppose, you must have had a- a home? Somewhere?” 

“Corellia. You?”

“Um, apparently it was called Raxus Prime,” she said, clutching the mug carefully between both hands. “I didn’t know that until after I left though. All I knew was the factory.”

He winced; he hadn’t ever been to Raxus Prime, but he knew it by reputation. A filthy, polluted scrapyard, the sort of place you could get parts cheap without questions asked. He’d made a point to avoid buying parts for his beloved Princess from anywhere that prided itself on being cheap. “You didn’t miss much,” he said gently. 

She laughed softly. “I’d believe that,” she said. She was quiet for a moment. “It was still nice to see the sky for the first time though.” 

“You enjoy your first ever sunset?”

“I stared for so long that my eyes ached for hours afterwards.” 

She was a peculiar enigma- at times remarkably innocent and joyful, with hints of something darker hiding within her. Her slavery had left scars on her, sure, but that didn’t explain why she felt so comfortable hanging around two violent tempered sith brats, or why she made ominous comments about having killed men before. She intrigued him, for sure, and he had a feeling she was holding a lot close to her chest; he wanted to tease it all out into the open, to see her unwind and relax and come apart in his arms. 

He meant that quite literally, of course, he definitely wanted to see if she was as expressive in the throes of passion as she was when she was dancing or rolling in the snow. But he meant it more figuratively as well- he liked her, he’d come to realise, actually liked her, and he wanted her to trust him. Sex would be fucking amazing, but seeing her slowly let her guard down around him was phenomenal too. 

They wasted a couple of hours up the mountain, with Bejah managing to cajole another drink out of him before they left. He regretted teaching her how to make snowballs when she realised he couldn’t move out of her range in time. She shrieked with delight when they spotted a herd of nerf cows moving along the edge of the field, and the shrieks turned to ones of horror when he snuck up behind her and dumped a chunk of snow down the back of her jacket. 

She was so happy she looked fit to burst, and the joy shining in her made his knees weak every time he looked at her. He kissed her more than a few times, the sugar sweet taste of the marshmallows lingering on her lips. 

The temperature began to drop as the sun slid towards the horizon, and when she couldn’t get her words out without stuttering over them in cold excitement, he declared their adventures to be over. She clung tight to him as they raced back down the mountain, her head resting against his back; her arms were looped around his middle again, and at one point he put his hand over hers, and she awkwardly linked her fingers through his. 

He couldn’t see her smile, but he imagined he could feel it. 

The speeder made good time going downhill, and they made it back to the Thul city faster than he expected. They were halfway back to the space port, walking close if not quite arm in arm, when there was a buzzing ping he recognised as a commlink after a moment. Patting himself down to find his comm, he frowned as he realised it wasn’t coming from his, but from Bejah’s. “Aww,” he said as she fumbled to pull it from her pocket, “you’re more popular than me.” 

She giggled, clearly flustered, and he grinned. Kriff, his face was gonna crack with all this goofy smiling at this rate. 

She clicked on the comm and a familiar figure appeared in front of them in miniature. 

“Bejah? You there?”

“Casey?”

“Yeah, uh, so...” Rix looked genuinely uncomfortable, her body language verging almost on fearful as she crossed her arms over her chest. “The, uh, the droid said I should call you? Or like, apparently that’s what Khem said, and the droid translated?” 

“What’s up, Rix?” he asked, leaning over Bejah’s shoulder. 

“Not you, Nikki,” she said, almost irritably. “I would’a called your comm if I wanted you.”

“What’s wrong?” Bejah asked quietly, a stillness having fallen over her that was almost eerie. 

Casey looked to the side sharply, as if seeing something out of view for the holo, and then looked back to them with a wince. “So, like, the sith went off to the mountains, right? To go to House Alde, dig up dirt or whatever it was they needed to do?”

“Yes?”

“Well, something happened out there. I don’t know what, but they’re screeching and screaming and lookin’ about two heartbeats away from trying to start something. Khem is standing between ‘em for the moment, but there’s a lot of slammin’ doors and thrown furniture and so uh... well, the droid said he said to call you, Sparky, so I think that means they want you to calm ‘em down before they kill each other.”

Andronikos felt his gut lurch. “The fuck are you still doing in the ship with them, Rix? Get the kriff out of there!” 

Bejah, by comparison, was unnaturally calm. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said quietly. There was something mournful in her tone, almost weary- not apprehensive or fearful like he might have expected. Someone told her she had to go jump between two screaming sith and she just got tired? 

What the hell had they put her through this last year, that that was her response? 

“Just keep quiet, and let Khem handle it until I get there. Wait in the hangar bay if you have to, instead of on the ship.”

“Get the hell out of there, Rix-”

“Andronikos,” Bejah said sharply, her voice so controlled and cold that he almost didn’t recognise her, “if you get worked up, you will make the situation worse. Be quiet.” 

He gaped at her incredulously. 

Bejah didn’t make eye contact with him, addressing the scolding to a space somewhere between his chin and his chest, and she looked back to the holo almost immediately. “It’s going to be alright, Casey,” she said, before disconnecting and pocketing the commlink again. She started forward without further conversation, leaving him staring at the back of her head. 

“You can’t be serious,” he called, when she kept marching towards the space port. 

She didn’t answer him. 

“Bejah,” he yelled; she ignored him again, and he let out a grunt of frustration, jogging to catch up to her. “You can’t be serious-”

“I heard you the first time, Andronikos,” she said, eyes facing forward as she continued to stomp towards the space port. 

“Yeah, well, most people give the courtesy of an answer,” he said; he tried to grab at her arm to pull her to a stop, but she wriggled out of reach at the last second. “You can’t go in there, they’ll-”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said, just as flatly as her first response.

“They’ll _kill_ you,” he said, successfully snaring her around the arm this time and dragging her to a halt. “ _Shit_ , Bejah, you don’t owe them fuck all, ain’t no reason why you need to go throwing yourself between two superpowered assholes who’d kill you as soon as look at you.” 

There was a flash of immense pain in her eyes before she closed them, something like grief; it threw him a little. “You don’t know what I owe them,” she said softly, tugging her arm out of his grip and straightening her jacket. She started off again, without waiting for his response. 

He gritted his teeth, biting down the curse he wanted to let out. “Bejah,” he called.

She ignored him, disappearing into the front portal of the space port and around the corner. 

“ _Bejah!_ ”

“ _What_ , Nikos?” she snarled, punching angrily at the lift controls to take them up to the hangar. He lunged in at the last minute, barely avoiding getting clipped by the door as it closed. 

If he had hair, he would have been tearing it out right now. “You can’t walk in between two sith-”

“One, you can’t tell me what to do, and two, you don’t know a thing about what I can and can’t do.” 

“Ain’t no one sane walks back into that ship knowing there’s a death match going on,” he said. “You told me on my first day that you weren’t no slave, so why the hell-”

She surprised him by letting out a snarl of anger, stalking from the elevator as it came to a stop on their floor. “What was your deal with Kaltix again? As long as you have your freedom, you’ll stay?” She was good and angry now, he could tell- the way her nostrils flared and her chin came up, he’d pissed her off good. “There’s no one forcing you back onto the ship right now, pirate. You’re free to do as you like, and surprisingly, just because I’ve got _this_ -” She gestured to the brand over her left eye, “-doesn’t mean that I’m any less free.”

“Then why the hell are you walking back onto that ship?” he asked, almost shouting in his frustration.

“Because I _want_ to,” she said, that same stubbornness that he’d glimpsed on their very first meeting shining through. “And I’m _free_ to want that, Nikos.” 

Saying that, she turned on her heel and marched up the ramp, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. Watching the back of her as she vanished, he found himself gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw was aching; with a wordless snarl of frustration, he threw his hands up in the air and then stomped after her, into the bowels of a ship currently held in thrall by two warring sith. 

The first thing he noticed upon crossing into the airlock was how charged the air was, like the whole ship was crackling with electricity so bad that the air itself was about to start sparking. Beneath his jacket, the hair on his arms stood on end, and the scarf around his neck attracted so much static immediately that he felt it zap his chin softly; he scowled and pulled it off, stuffing it into his pocket. 

The second thing he noticed was that it was excruciatingly quiet, almost eerily so, and given that Casey had called saying they were tearing up the place and screaming, it gave him the heebie jeebies to consider why it might be so silent now. Rolling his shoulders to try and fix the crawling he felt between them, he stomped loudly up the ramp to the main room, so as not to take anyone by surprise and get himself zapped. 

The third thing he noticed, as he stepped into the main room of the Fury, was that there was someone new in the room. Sort of. He blinked, but the image before him didn’t go away. 

The indistinct outline of a humanoid figure stood beside Bejah, facing the two brats as they sat on the couch, expressions murderous and arms crossed sullenly. 

“There’s a ghost there,” he blurted, apparently unhelpfully given that nobody else seemed the least bit surprised to see it there. 

They all of them- including the ghost- turned to look at him. “A stunning display of observational skills,” the ghost said wryly, their face hidden by a mask that seemed distinctly sith-like, and their voice low and raspy. 

“Y’all just...” He looked between them all. “None of you are surprised by this.” 

Bejah wouldn’t meet his gaze still, her eyes fixed instead off to the side. “This is the Dark Lord Kallig, once a member of the Dark Council and Lord of the Sith,” she said hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure of the proper way to introduce a ghost. “He... he’s Kaltix’s ancestor.” 

Kallathe made a disgusted noise and threw her arms across the back of the lounge. “See, look at that, you’ve _got_ family,” she began, her tone remarkably cutting. Whatever she’d been intending to say, she didn’t get to finish, because Kaltix snarled violently and lunged off his seat towards her. 

Bejah threw her hands up as if to stop them, and he nearly leapt forward to grab her and pull her back, but he needn’t have bothered. The ghost did- _something_ , kriff, he didn’t know what, but he felt it in the air. That charge, that powerful spark that he’d first felt upon entering, vanished completely, so abruptly that he felt the air pressure change; he winced as his eardrums ached in response, putting a hand up to rub at it. 

Kaltix and Kallathe both fell back against the cushions as if they’d been suckerpunched, and the outline of the ghost visibly wavered, as if it was struggling to hold its form. As he watched, it turned to Bejah with a nod, as she slowly lowered her hands. “I cannot stay,” he said, his voice a lot fainter. Clearly whatever he’d done to subdue the brats had taken a lot out of him. “I will entrust their care to you.”

“Of course, my Lord,” she whispered, sounding somewhat... ashamed? “I’m sorry. I didn’t think-”

“It is quite alright,” the ghost said. 

And then he vanished from view. 

Noticing movement out of the corner of his eye, he glanced towards the hall that led to the crew quarters; Casey was standing there, her face white as a sheet as she watched the events unfolding in the room. Stars only knew what shit she’d seen before the kid’s Ghostly Grandpa had turned up. 

Bejah, by comparison, wiped her palms on her clothes as if nervous, as she turned back to the lounge. “Now,” she began, but Kallathe interrupted.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” she snapped irritably, still draped listlessly over the cushions. “Not after that little display.” 

“It will wear off in a few minutes,” Bejah said quietly, almost like she was scolding her, and Andronikos had to admit, she seemed quite capable of matching Kallathe when she wanted to. This was the third or fourth time now that he’d seen her butt heads with her, and each time that stubbornness had wormed its way out of her to do battle. “And a Force drain will be the least of your worries if you don’t explain to me what _this_ little display is all about.”

A Force drain? As in, sith could have their freaky magic siphoned out of them? Kriff, a sith ghost sounded like a useful thing to keep around. 

“He jeopardised the mission,” Kallathe said snidely.

Kaltix snarled again. “ _She_ jeopardised the mission!”

“I didn’t destroy an Alde library archive in a rage!”

“No, you just slept with and then spurned our primary contact with Thul!”

Andronikos rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he settled against the doorframe. 

Bejah had dropped down to a crouch in front of the lounge. “Alright, so there’s two different issues here,” she said gently, her tone so calming that Andronikos had trouble remembering why he’d been so worked up ten minutes ago. She sure as shit weren’t scared of the brats, and they actually seemed to be listening to her- whatever relationship they had going on, apparently, worked. “Do either of you want to explain the situation to me?”

“What’s to tell?” Kaltix snapped, and if Andronikos wasn’t mistaken, the kid looked like he could have been teetering towards hysterical. Looked like he was about to cry and shit, if he hadn’t already. Kriff, what’d Kallathe done to make the poor kid cry? “Kallathe fucked Elana Thul, and then got bored, and now Elana won’t help us because her pride is hurt.” 

On the other side of the room, Casey snorted in amusement. 

“Well, it’s not like I haven’t been making other connections while we’ve been here that we can fall back on, rather than relying on the temperamental whims of a jilted woman,” Kallathe said with venom dripping from her words. “Or rather, we _could_ have used those connections, if someone hadn’t gone into a blind rage in the Alde estate and destroyed archives with hundreds of years worth of local history stored on them. Strangely enough, people aren’t so inclined to work for us or help us when we erase their own culture.”

Unable to physically attack her again, he instead rolled his head to the side and cast her the filthiest glare imaginable; Andronikos actually winced at the sight of it, fighting the urge to laugh and shake his head. Casey’d made it sound like the world were ending when she’d called, but this weren’t nothing more than two moody brats used to getting their way being told no. 

“Okay,” Bejah said quietly, clearly trying to think quickly, “Kallathe, I think the obvious solution to your problem is to apologise-” 

Kallathe hissed like an angry lothcat.

“-to Lady Elana and to Kaltix,” Bejah continued. 

“I am a Lord of the Sith! I beg for the forgiveness of no one!” 

“I’m not asking you to beg, I’m asking you to apologise,” Bejah said firmly. “You don’t need to simper in order to respect someone, and if anything, Lady Thul is angry because you don’t respect her. Or would you rather explain to Lord Zash that we’ve failed at our mission because you were too proud to treat another woman with respect?” 

Kallathe was glowering so malevolently that Andronikos had to wonder whether she was trying to melt Bejah’s damn face off. 

Bejah, however, was apparently indifferent to Kallathe’s ire; she shifted in her crouch and turned to face Kaltix, who was instead staring at the ceiling. “You destroyed an archive?” she asked quietly. His nose twitched, as if he was fighting off a sneer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“ _No_ ,” he said flatly. 

“He couldn’t find his family,” Kallathe said in a singsong voice, and Andronikos could quite happily have slapped her himself when he say the flash of pain on the kid’s face. As it was, Bejah didn’t seem to take happily to it either, given how she rose up to her completely unintimidating five foot nothing to loom over her on the couch. 

“Do not speak again, or I will ask Khem Val to remove you.”

“Like he’d listen to _you_ -”

“Khem Val?” At Bejah’s call, the giant meat critter appeared silently behind Casey, who jumped in alarm to find him so close, scuttling along the edge of the wall to get away from him. “I’m sorry to bother you- could I ask for your help?”

The brooding beast growled something in that creepy language of his, something that seemed to promise violence and blood and pain. 

Kallathe let out a rather disgusted sigh of submission. “Fine,” she drawled, letting the single syllable stretch out over several, “although I’m very angry that you’re nice to her and not me.”

Khem Val’s response was a low growl. 

“I _am_ nice! I haven’t tried to kill you once!”

“Shut up, Kallathe.” Kaltix said it with all the energy of someone on their deathbed; when Andronikos looked back to him, the kid had his eyes closed again, and his body language seemed to scream that he wanted to be anywhere in the galaxy but there. “No one believes you anyway.” 

There was so much resignation in his voice, so much pain and weariness, that Andronikos abruptly felt like he was intruding. He absolutely hated to admit it, but Bejah really did have a handle on things far better than he ever would’ve thought- the brats really did seem to respect her opinion to a degree, and that ghost pulling his tricks earlier had helped defuse a volatile situation from getting worse. 

He didn’t want to hang around and see the kid get ripped to shreds- the glee Kallathe was taking at his pain was all he needed to know that this situation was personal, and weren’t something he needed to stick his nose into. Sometimes a man just had to have some painful shit behind him, and it did no one no good to go dragging it back into the present again. 

Pushing off of the wall, he headed over towards Casey, hooking his arm through hers and pulling her down the corridor, away from the confrontation.

“Kaltix?” he heard Bejah say behind him.

There was silence, and then just before the door to the crew quarters slid shut behind them, he heard Kaltix say softly “I just wanted to find my family.” 

Casey let out an audible shudder once they were safely ensconced in the room. “Kriff, I thought they were gonna kill each other,” she said, hugging her arms around herself as she shuffled from foot to foot. Andronikos tugged his jacket off and tossed it on his bunk. “I ain’t ever seen Sith get proper worked up like that.”

“Hardly even needed Bejah, if that ghost were here the whole time,” he said, sitting on the edge of the mattress to pull of his boots. His socks were vaguely damp from the snow, and his toes were aching. 

“Yeah, he only turned up after I called.” She was quiet for a moment. “Not that he were good for much.”

He snorted. “Uh yeah, because draining the power of two psychotic sith ain’t much good to no one,” he said sarcastically. 

Casey didn’t answer, and when he glanced up at her she was giving him the most incredulous look, like he’d just sprouted a pair of hairy lekku from his forehead. 

“What?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a dumb fucking shit when you wanna be, Nikki,” she said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean,” she said cryptically. “You’ve got somethin’ glittery on you, by the way. On your cheek.”

He grunted and put a hand up to rub it away. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s blue,” she said, and then when he didn’t elaborate, she said “Bejah’s makeup is blue today.”

“Jealousy don’t suit you, Rix.”

“I ain’t jealous, just...”

He waited for her to continue, and then snorted. “If this is the part where you tell me I need to be fucking decent to her cause I’m the big nasty pirate and she’s all young and sheltered-”

“I _was_ gonna tell you to be careful,” she said acidly. “Maybe just stop and think about what kind of girl can pull up two sith dead in their tracks without batting an eyelid.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d had exactly the same thought.


	6. Chapter 6

Outside the viewport, the stars sparkled as the Fury drifted slowly on the outskirts of an uncharted asteroid field; Andronikos was humming under his breath as he worked, running a diagnostic on the various ship systems to make sure all was well. Life support needed a proper flush, what with all the pollen and shit the filters had picked up during their lengthy stay on Alderaan, and they’d travelled through a gas filled nebula at one point and the engines had been a little peaky ever since. Probably just needed recalibrating, gas had probably just muddled the heat sensors.

Hyperdrive was good though, and the network was in prime condition- he hadn’t really been much of a tech-head when he was younger, but a year of trying to track down the assholes who’d ruined his life had seen him pick up a whole bunch of new skills. He’d never be a top grade slicer, but he could backdoor his way into most standard systems without difficulty these days, and it was interesting poking around in the security processes in place on the ship to see what passed as standard amongst the Imps. 

Kallathe kept her holonet accounts locked up tighter than Imperial Intelligence, and he had to figure that of the two sith on board, she at least had some experience with safeguarding her secrets. She always seemed to know things ahead of the curve, always seemed to be scheming and calculating and conspiring in a way that made his skin crawl; she was a wily one, to be sure, and even after a couple of weeks travelling with them, he still didn’t know what her deal was. 

Well. He had a pretty good idea of what her deal was, but he weren’t dumb enough to say it aloud. She’d take exception to him being mouthy again, and try to choke him.

Kaltix’s accounts weren’t so well shielded, but he felt an ass for poking around in there after how worked up the kid had been that day back on Alderaan. He still didn’t have the full picture of what’d gone down, only that it had something to do with his family- he wouldn’t have picked an Alderaanian for a sith, but he hardly would’ve been poking around looking for home in a library on Alderaan if home were off on the fringes of Wild Space. 

He couldn’t believe he was feeling sorry for a sith, of all things, but the kid seemed genuinely distraught about it all. He’d been sullen and quiet for the remainder of their visit, keeping himself mostly to his room and not even talking with his favourite meat monster. 

The one that’d surprised him the most was Bejah’s holonet account- or rather, her almost complete lack of a holonet account. Oh, she had one registered and all, and it was woefully insecure, but that didn’t really seem to matter given that there was nothing in it at all to warrant going through it. No net searches, no outgoing messages. No saved pages for later perusal. She really had been telling the truth back in the snow when she said she hadn’t gone searching for the gossip on his dark past. 

Even Khem Val had more saved in his account, a disturbing number of subscriptions to kids cartoon holos and what had looked to be a couple of ban notices from historical net pages asking him to stop editing the articles on Tulak Hord. 

This ship got weirder every day. 

He and Bejah hadn’t really spoken much since the snow day- something had shifted between them, something awkward, and given that she seemed determined to avoid him, he weren’t gonna push the issue. If the lady didn’t want to spend her time with him, he could deal with it. He was a big boy, he weren’t gonna sit and pout and pine just cause the she weren’t interested no more. 

Oh, who the fuck was he kidding. He was fucking pissed as all hell. 

It wasn’t even like she had a reason to be avoiding him, when she was the one who’d gone all sinister again and calmed down two sith brats like she were just dealing with toddlers. Any sane person would be good and wary of a person like that, so really _he_ had every right to be avoiding _her_. Okay, so, maybe he’d been a little overbearing and a little condescending when he’d argued with her about going back to the ship, but honestly? How was he supposed to know she was just gonna walk in there and get them to stop their screeching like it was no big thing? 

He’d had every right to be frustrated, and she’d just blown off his concern like he was overreacting and trying to control her and goddamn it all. Kissing her senseless up in the snow seemed almost like a fantasy now than a reality, like it was something his starved libido had concocted to help him get over the drought; stars only knew he’d wanked off often enough to the memory in the last week or so. 

_Just talk to her_ , Casey had said irritably last night, her back to him as he’d sat up on his bunk and ranted at length about how dumb the whole thing was. _For the love of fuck, why do I have to be the one to suffer for your stupid?_

Easier said than done. He weren’t gonna push himself on her if she were determined to avoid him. He had his pride. 

He was halfway through recalibrating the proximity sensors when he got a ping on the main console, looking over from where he was lounging on the pilot’s chair, one leg propped up over the arm. Leaning forward with a grunt, he snared his datapad off the top of the console and clicked through to open the message on his personal account, rather than on the ship computer. 

Engineering report. Bejah. He gritted his teeth, aware of the humour of her messaging him when he was sitting around brooding about her, but not really in the mood to find it funny. 

Well, he could be an adult about this. He did need the engineering report if he was gonna finish his own maintenance, and he’d be interested to see how her assessment differed from his own, if at all. Just cause the girl had a knack for droids didn’t mean she knew how to keep a beauty like this fine tuned and in top condition. 

He raised his eyebrows as he clicked on the attachment, expecting to see only a text file and instead seeing a dense talk-to-text file that hadn’t been properly condensed before sending. He tried to open it, and growled in frustration as it set to buffering the contents instead of loading, the timer ticking over with excruciating slowness. 

“Pain in the-” He tossed the datapad down on the copilot’s chair and stalked from the cockpit, the metal grates clanging under his boots; there was music playing in the engine room, something soft and breathy that he didn’t recognise, but that seemed to have been selected deliberately to jar with the annoyance he felt. It made him feel hulking and brutish to come stomping in while some damn ballad was playing. 

Bejah was working at the bench, her back to the door, and for a moment he faltered when he took in the fact that she’d pushed her jumpsuit off of her arms and had tied it off around her waist, leaving her clad only in a thin cotton tank top. She was a tiny little thing, for sure, but there was a subtle strength in those arms and through those shoulders- which he could very definitely see a lot of right now- and seeing the way the black coils rested gently against the curve of her neck from where she’d tried to pull her hair up out of the way of her work was damned distracting. 

She was humming to herself, quietly singing along with the lyrics, and to be honest with the curls and her sleek brown skin and the singing, it took him a few seconds to shake himself and remember what it was he was here for. 

He cleared his throat loudly, gritting his teeth when he saw her jump in alarm; everything he did made her jump, everything _anyone_ did made her jump, and it frustrated him. Poor kid deserved the chance to feel safe for once in her life, and she sure as shit wasn’t gonna get it trailing around after two bratty Sith, but then she kept insisting that she _wanted_ to be here like that wasn’t the dumbest thing anyone had ever said. 

“Hey,” he said, trying not to feel smug when her shoulders drooped with relief at the sound of his voice. “Got your engineering report.”

The smile she graced him with as she turned around would have made a lesser man’s knees weak. Good thing he wasn’t a lesser man, and that he definitely wasn’t leaning against the doorframe to keep his knees from knocking. 

_Calm down, Revel, she ain’t interested anymore._

“Oh!” She looked as if this revelation surprised her. “Oh, I um, I didn’t realise they’d go to you. Is it okay?” 

“I dunno,” he said, crossing his arms. “They’re still downloading.”

“Is that... bad?”

“Just curious why you went to all the trouble of using a speech converter normally designed for Miralukans. Couldn’t tear yourself away from your tinkering for five minutes to write the report up yourself?” 

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them; he’d been annoyed, true, but that irritation vanished like dust in the wind the moment her face fell.

“Hey, come on now, there’s no need for that face,” he said, lurching forward before he could stop himself and reaching out to pat her on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered, her face scrunched up as if she was trying not to cry.

“Hey, easy Sparky, it’s not that bad,” he said, “it’s not something to get upset about-” 

“But you’re upset, or you wouldn’t have come to tell me, and I’m sorry, I’m-”

Kriff, she was gonna make herself hyperventilate at this rate. “Shh, hey come on, it’s not a big deal,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and turning her to face him. Aw, that was actually a terrible idea, because now she was staring up at him with her big dark eyes and seeing how miserable she looked was going to _kill_ him. “Just, okay, if you absolutely can’t stop working and want to do the reports as audios, there’s much better file converters and honestly, if you’re not Miralukan there’s not much point using their damn software, it’s all complicated weird ass functions which probably makes sense when you’re blind and Force sensitive but don’t make a damn lick of sense to the rest of us.”

He was babbling. He, Andronikos Revel, most feared pirate in the Outer Rim, was babbling because some doe-eyed little starship mechanic was looking at him like she was about to burst into tears. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, but he cut her off.

“Uh uh, come on, stop that. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I can’t _write_ ,” she blurted out abruptly, her chin dropping towards the floor as if she couldn’t bear to look at him while she made the confession. “I just- that’s why I used the talking program. I can’t write up the reports myself, so I just asked a salesman at a tech shop on Dromund Kaas for help, and he said this one would work fine, and it was expensive so I figured it must have been good, and I... I’m sorry.” 

He blinked. “That’s... that’s what you were worried about? Because you can’t write?”

She nodded miserably, not lifting her head. 

He sighed, feeling wearier than he probably should have for such a simple misunderstanding. “Come on, Sparky, it’s okay,” he said gently.

“I know my numbers,” she whispered, not looking up. “But I can’t... I know a little, sometimes I can recognise a few letters, but I can’t-” 

“That why you never look at menus for more than a sec’?” At her shamefaced nod, he could’ve kicked himself. He’d kept shoving menus at her that she couldn’t read. He’d teased her about using the holonet to snoop on him, which she couldn’t read. So much of her weird little mannerisms made sense in context now; fucking stars, he couldn’t even imagine how she’d grown so adept at tech when she didn’t have the benefit of reading warnings and instructions and manufacturing specs. 

Fuck, it was actually sort of terrifying to consider; there was a brilliance hiding there under the shy veneer that he was slowly getting more insight into every time he blundered upon one of her secrets. 

“Reading, or- I mean, writing and my letters, it’s not the sort of thing slaves need to know,” she continued. “And they were already mad at me for not knowing Basic-”

“You’re speaking Basic now though?”

Her laugh verged on tearful. “The woman- the sith, I mean, the sith lord who took me, she...” She swallowed awkwardly, like she was trying not to cry. “She did something to me? In my head, she said it was insulting to her that I expected her to speak the language of worms, so she did something in my head and pushed things around and it hurt so much but when she was done,-” She shrugged helplessly, “-I knew Basic.”

He went still. “She did what?”

“It hurts, sometimes, like it doesn’t fit properly, sort of like a headache but... not quite.”

There was a rage building in him, cold and ruthless, the sort that had kept him focussed and alive while he’d been trapped in a narrow tube in space, or strapped to a sith torturer’s chair. “What was her name?” he asked, his voice ominously quiet.

Bejah sniffed, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I- I’m not sure, I never found out-”

“Do the brats know it? Would they know who she is?”

She frowned, a little crease of confusion between her eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t know if they saw me arrive at- when we met, I don’t think they would have seen her.” She hesitated. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, a violently cold clarity coming over him, “I’m gonna find her, and I’m gonna kill her.” 

Her eyes went so wide it was a wonder they didn’t pop out of her head entirely. “I- what? No, oh stars, Andronikos, please don’t get yourself hurt-”

“I ain’t the one gonna be hurting, she is.”

“But-”

“No buts here, Sparky, that witch hurt you and fucked around with your head, that’s not acceptable. Maybe you’re more used to this shit, spending more time around sith, but it ain’t right. She hurt you. She’s gotta pay for that.” 

There was something in her eyes that seemed bigger than just outright confusion, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Why would you even care?” she asked quietly, and he could tell by her tone that it wasn’t an accusation levelled at him so much as an expression of genuine bewilderment. She really _couldn’t_ understand why he cared, and that broke his heart. 

_Language of worms_ , she’d said. Taking a stab in the dark, he answered in Huttese. “Why should I not care about someone else getting hurt?” he asked. “Especially someone who matters a whole lot to me?” 

The look on her face might have been funny, if it weren’t so fucking tragic; she looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, the wonder in her beautiful dark eyes teetering from one to the other and back again a dozen times over. The tears spilled over silently, and he reached up with his thumb to brush them away. “Is it wrong that I want you to hold me?” she whispered; stars above, there was a galaxy of difference in the way she spoke Huttese to the way she spoke Basic. There was a cadence to her Huttese, a natural, comfortable rhythm that was just missing entirely from her Basic. It made it so much more obvious that the latter had been forced on her. 

His hand was already close to her face, so it just seemed natural to run the backs of his fingers over the soft curve of her cheek. “Now, why would that be wrong?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” she said, her lip trembling slightly; she swallowed heavily, as if she was pushing back a sob. “I’m not used to- being allowed to want things.”

It wasn’t hard to let his other hand slide down the curve of her shoulder and dip down to her waist, tugging her closer. “Is that what you want right now?” he asked. “You want me to hold you?”

She took a shaky breath, her gaze dropping briefly to his mouth. “Yes?” she whispered, something almost cringing in the way she said it, like she was expecting him to recoil and laugh. 

He nodded. “Alright then, sweetheart,” he said; the violence and the need to lash out at those that’d gone and hurt her still simmered in him, but he pressed it down ruthlessly in the face of her needs. He could be gentle, damn it. He weren’t so far gone a monster that he couldn’t do right by her. 

When he slid his hand round to the small of her back and applied a little pressure, she took the prompt and went into his arms without fighting it. He heard her sigh miserably, her breath warm against his throat, but she relaxed quite noticeably as well; he felt a little smug about that. Alright, a lot smug. He wrapped his arms tight around her, his mouth against her forehead; he might’ve half pressed a kiss there, his eyes closed as he breathed in the scent of her. 

“You’re okay, Sparky,” he said quietly, one hand smoothing slowly over her back. “It’s all good.”

He felt her sigh again, as if she was still fighting back tears. “We don’t have to speak Huttese,” she said, switching back to Basic again. “I know people don’t like the Hutts-”

“Your ma teach you how to talk?”

“What?”

“Your ma. Did she teach you how to talk? Tell you those stories you like in Huttese?” 

She hesitated. “Yes?” 

“Well, then, that’s important,” he said. “More’n that, no one ever asked you if you wanted to speak Basic, and those damn Sith didn’t exactly give you the chance to learn it on your own, they just hurt you.”

She smelled like them fancy gels she had in the shower, all sugar sweet and soft. “Not all sith are bad,” she said quietly, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her. If he hadn’t felt her lips moving so close to his throat, he might’ve missed it entirely. 

“I ain’t met a good one yet,” he said. At the way she tensed, he sighed. “Come on, Sparky, the brats are tolerable if they’re in a good mood, but ain’t no one ever gonna call them _good_.” 

Bejah was silent for so long that he thought she might’ve half drifted off in his arms, and he’d be lying if he said there weren’t a part of him that didn’t find that thought intriguing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the apology throwing him out of his fluffier thoughts and into confusion.

“What? You ain’t got anything to be sorry for, Sparky,” he said, pulling back just enough so that he could look down at her. She seemed reluctant to meet his gaze, but eventually she looked up, almost guiltily. “Bejah, come on, I’m the one who needs to be apologizing. Ain’t I the one who came stomping in here all shitty in the first place, upsetting you?”

“Well, I don’t know, I guess-”

“Hey, nah, none of that,” he said, more firmly this time. “If I come in here acting an ass, you’ve got the right to kick me on my ass and say ‘ _shut your damn mouth, pirate_ ’, okay?” 

She bit her lip, and looked down. “I don’t know if I can say that.”

“Sure you can,” he said, pleased at least to see her mouth fighting to keep a smile from forming. “C’mon, practice with me now. Shut your damn mouth, pirate. It’s easy.”

“I can’t say that.”

He leaned in closer, enough that his nose brushed against hers. She was very pointedly biting her lip and trying not to laugh, and weren’t that a sight for sore eyes after seeing her so worked up and miserable. “Say it,” he said, all but purring the words.

She looked up at him, her eyes alight with curious excitement. “Shut your damn mouth, pirate,” she whispered. 

It was the closest he’d ever heard her come to cursing, and it thrilled him. “Make me,” he growled, his hands tightening on her hips. 

She let out a shivery gasp, and then she threw her arms around his neck, surging up onto her toes to crush her mouth against his. 

_Stars._

He responded in kind, arms going tight around her and crushing her to him so fiercely that her feet left the floor. She moaned against his mouth, and he deepened the kiss, teasing at her lips with his tongue until she opened to him; the noise she made, the way she shivered so violently at the sweep of his tongue against hers, made his dick perk up so fast that it was a wonder he didn’t keel over backwards from the abrupt blood loss from his brain. 

She was clumsily enthusiastic, trying to match his rhythm, and damn if her eagerness didn’t just make it sexier. He let one hand slide down to her ass, squeezing gently, and he damn near passed out with lust when she whimpered and writhed against him. 

“ _Nikos_ ,” she moaned, the sound turning slightly high-pitched when he nipped gently at the edge of her jaw. “ _Oh!_ ” 

Unlike up in the snow, there were very few layers of clothing in the way this time, and he could feel the heat burning off of her bare skin; more than that, he could also feel the way her nipples had pebbled through the thin fabric of her tank top, pressing into his chest as she rubbed up against him. Stars, if he weren’t careful, she’d devour him whole and he’d thank her for it after. 

And thank kriffin’ fuck he hadn’t just imagined that whole business up in the snow. _Stars_.

He nudged her backwards until her back hit the edge of her workbench, pinning her nice and snug between his body and the table. She was like a wildfire in his arms, writhing and squirming and rubbing herself against him as if she was trying to light a spark between them. 

When he kissed a path along the line of her jaw towards her earlobe, she all but mewed pitifully, the sound needy and desperate. “Y’seem a little flustered, Sparky,” he said, his own voice far raspier than his ego might’ve hoped. 

She shivered. “Shut your damn mouth, pirate,” she stuttered, her fingers digging in tight to his shoulders.

He chuckled. “Best thing for that is to give me something to put in it,” he drawled, kissing down her neck towards her shoulder. She seemed to guess at his intentions a second or two later, if the way her pulse leapt under his lips was anything to go by, and her chest was heaving as his mouth wandered over the beautiful skin left exposed by the insubstantial tank top. 

“Nikos,” she whimpered, the last syllable trailing off onto a desperate whine as he closed his mouth over her nipple through the shirt, sucking on the small bud until the fabric over it was hot and wet. Her hands had flown up to his head, clutching at him as if she wasn’t sure whether she was urging him closer or pushing him back; she was _magnificent_ in the throes of lust, and he hadn’t even begun to drive her crazy. 

God, he wanted to fuck her so bad right now. 

But his condoms were in the drawer under his bunk, on the other side of the ship, and he weren’t dumb enough to tangle with someone without protection; especially given how he hadn’t bothered with a basic medical since getting out of that sith brig. Stars only fucking knew what he could have picked up then, or in the rage-filled months since that had blurred by in a mix of alcohol and violence. And more than that, up until ten minutes ago they hadn’t even been on speaking terms, and even if his dick was doing most of his thinking for him, he was still sensible enough to know that a quick fuck on a greasy workbench weren’t gonna be worth the fallout if she decided later she weren’t okay with it. 

Stars, he wanted her to be okay with it so fucking bad, but he weren’t gonna risk it when they hadn’t had a chance to talk like adults. 

He tongued at her nipple, covering the damp patch on her shirt with his mouth; she arched into his touch, her breast all but offered up for him to feast on. When he glanced up at her she was watching him, her mouth hanging open as she panted desperately, her eyes glazed with frantic lust. 

He pulled his mouth away with a deliberately loud sucking noise, smacking his lips as if he’d just eaten the most exquisite meal imaginable. Bejah moaned needily. 

“I suppose I’ve been adequately shut up,” he began, but she shook her head almost violently.

“No, no, please, I can’t-” She let out a sound of frustration, some of her hair slipping loose from the tie; he hadn’t seen her with her hair down proper, the tightly coiled curls spilling over her shoulder. Fuck, now he was thinking about what she’d look like with her hair splayed over a pillow as she lay beneath him. “Please don’t leave it at that.”

Kriffin’ fuck. “I ain’t gonna fuck you, sweetheart,” he growled, even as he crowded her closer against the bench, their hips pressed together so that she could feel his interest in her. “For one, I know you ain’t ever been with anyone before-”

“Yes I have,” she said quickly, her eyes darting nervously to the side.

“Bullshit. Don’t push me, sweetheart, I ain’t interested in lies.”

“Well,” she spluttered, clearly trying to think of a witty response. “Well, so what if I haven’t? Everyone has to start somewhere. Or am I not experienced enough for you and you think you’ll be bored?”

“Bored? Are you shitting me? I ain’t been able to think about anything but what it’d be like to have you for the better part of a week now, Sparky.”

She tried to hide her smug reaction to his words, but she was terrible at masking her emotions. “Well, I don’t understand-”

“Maybe if you let me finish a kriffin’ sentence, sweetheart, this’d go a lot faster.” He braced his hands either side of her on the table, dipping down to kiss her hard for a brief moment. God, his dick fucking _hated_ him right now. “When I fuck you, it ain’t gonna be on a filthy workbench just down the hall from a couple of sith brats who’d happily kill us as soon as blink at us. It ain’t gonna be when we haven’t talked for days and you ain’t had time to think it through with a clear head.” He kissed her again, a little more desperate this time. “It’ll be slow, and it’ll be somewhere comfortable, and it’ll be good for you-”

“It could be good for me now,” she moaned against his mouth. 

Kriffin’ fuckin’ stars, she was making this so difficult. “The door’s open, sweetheart, they can probably all hear us if we keep making this sort of racket.”

“Don’t care,” she said, rubbing against him, “ _please_ , Nikos.” 

_Do the right thing, you asshole._

He grit his teeth. “Not like this, Bejah,” he said, forcing himself to use her name, to make it more real. He pushed back, putting space between them. “Ain’t gonna do you wrong by doing you like this.”

She looked like temptation incarnate, with her kiss swollen lips and her tousled hair, and the damp mark over her breast where he’d teased her. He wanted nothing more than to gorge himself on her right then and there. The worst part though, the absolute worst, was seeing the look of utter desolation on her face as she watched him back away. 

Fuck. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes tight as if he could wish away the hurt in her face, as if it wasn’t burned onto the back of his eyelids to torment him even in the darkness. 

“I, uh...” _Well done, asshole._ “Fuck.”

He turned around, and walked out.


	7. Chapter 7

“But I don’t _want_ to go to Nar Shaddaa.”

Andronikos fought the urge to roll his eyes at Kallathe’s histrionics, not too interested in drawing her ire while she was in a mood; girl was far too quick with her claws for his tastes, and not in the fun way. 

“I didn’t say it was negotiable,” Kaltix said, his quiet voice mild as always. He seemed no worse for wear after the unpleasantness on Alderaan a few weeks back, his brief moment of rage filled grief nothing more than a memory now; it was sort of creepy, to be honest. He would’ve thought all sith were the same, all evil cackling and tyrannical lust for power and an elaborate need for drama- the ones who’d tortured him back in the brig sure as shit had been. Kallathe sure as hell was. But Kaltix seemed to be all brooding quiet and sullen calm, enough that it made him uneasy. 

He knew what to expect when dealing with overpowered toddlers throwing tantrums. He had no idea what to do with a sith who flouted those expectations. 

“Kallig told _you_ to go back and get his uselessly antiquated lightsaber,” Kallathe said dismissively, from where she was lounging dramatically across the couch. “And if he won’t give us any other warnings about Zash apart from ‘ _doom_ ’-” she whispered this with exaggerated horror, “-then I don’t care to listen to him.” 

They were all gathered in the main room of the ship, watching the two sith brats argue. Casey was slouched on the couch near to Kallathe, with Bejah perched nervously beside her; Khem Val was standing ominously in the door to the hallway, because the damn ass couldn’t do anything that wasn’t ominous. Kaltix was standing rather calmly, with his hands clasped before him, as if he weren’t being yelled at by a woman who liked to lash out with lightning at the first chance she got. 

“We have a single ship, Kallathe,” Kaltix said. “Shall I have Captain Revel drop you off on an asteroid on our way past? We can pick you up on the way back.” 

Andronikos hid a grin. 

Kallathe narrowed her eyes at Kaltix, far less pleased than she had been a moment ago. “You aren’t in charge of this ship,” she said. “ _You_ don’t get to decide where we go.” 

“It can’t hurt, can it?” Bejah whispered, twisting her fingers together nervously. “I mean, you’re always wanting to make connections and alliances. If you made an appearance on Nar Shaddaa, wouldn’t it, um, strengthen the cult?”

Andronikos blinked. “Come again?”

“Kallathe has a cult,” Kaltix said, as if it was the most perfectly reasonable thing in the world to say. “And she’s right. It can’t hurt us to have our influence grow-”

Kallathe stabbed a finger lazily at him. “They are my beloved minions, not yours. Do not say ‘ _our_ ’ influence when you mean ‘ _my_ ’ influence.”

“What are their names?” Kaltix said, without missing a beat.

“Who gives minions names? They’re interchangeable.”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe I slept with you,” Casey said incredulously.

Kallathe made a purring sound. “And you’re _welcome_ , darling,” she cooed. 

He didn’t really want to stick around for whatever this conversation would evolve into- it was weird enough already, thanks- so he cleared his throat. “I’ll chart our jump to Y’Toub System,” he said, ducking into the cockpit before he could get drawn into the sith’s arguments. Ghost had told them to go, who was he to argue. Weren’t like he made a lot of decisions with much else to go on. 

He heard Kallathe screech in frustration, and promptly closed the door behind him. No sith lightning bolts coming for his back, thanks. 

The stars were spread out before him, singing like a siren’s call as he pulled up the astrocharts and began running the calculations. Heh, who would’ve thought a background in accounting would make it easier to keep track of the numbers when it came to a lightspeed jump. It only took him a minute or two to finish plugging everything into the navicomp, and then the brilliant sparks of light lunged towards them, stretching out into long fingers of painful white. 

“I didn’t say we could go!” Kallathe yelled through the door.

“Shut up, Kallathe.” Stars, that boy had the patience of a Jedi sometimes. 

The jump was only gonna take them maybe an hour, and as he settled back into the pilot’s chair, he found his thoughts drifting with the swirling blue of hyperspace. It’d been a long time since he’d been on Nar Shaddaa- not since before everything that’d gone down with the artifacts and the mutiny. Not like he was expecting it to have changed drastically (Nar Shaddaa weren’t never gonna change, it was dependable as it was filthy) but more like he was thinking about how much _he’d_ changed, and how drastically. 

Had the artifacts changed him at all, the same way they’d driven the crew mad? Had a year in that sith brig warped him and corrupted him, left him brittle and rabid and spitting mad in a way he weren’t before? He couldn’t imagine the dreaded Captain Revel from a year ago not taking his freedom and walking the moment he had it, but here he was tagging along after two sith brats for no reason other than that he didn’t have much else to do. 

It hadn’t been a good year, if he was letting himself be bluntly honest for a change. 

He could cope with the violence- all the torture, the beatings, that was the sort of shit he expected both from the penal system and from the sith. He could hold his own well enough, and he _had_ damn it. The deprivation had been harder- withheld meals when he hadn’t cooperated, no clean water or fresh clothes. Shitting in the corner of the tiny cell, because they hadn’t seen fit to offer a bucket. 

The worst had been the darkness, and the closeness of the space. The cell had been far too much like the escape pod when he’d been in his worst moods, cramped and confined, no fresh air, no natural light, no chance to escape or breathe; he weren’t proud of how bad the shakes had been, how violent he’d gotten in his panic. 

He weren’t expecting no apology, or any sort of official pardon; that weren’t how the sith worked, and he knew it. He still couldn’t justify to himself why he’d stuck around, why he hadn’t just turned tail and run when the sith had come knocking for him again. 

A pretty face in the snow, and kisses that tasted like marshmallows, seemed a pretty likely culprit, but he weren’t so dumb to lose his head and his good sense over a pretty face. There’d been pretty faces before, and there would be pretty faces again. Weren’t worth getting himself in deep with sith assholes just because her smile made his dick perk up. 

And now his mood was taking a hard turn south, darker and angrier as he brooded over everything he’d lost. Everything he’d endured, and for nothing. He’d kept himself alive in that prison on nothing but his rabid need for vengeance against Wilkes and the rest of the mutineers, and even that had fizzled out to nothing. He had nothing to show for it all, absolutely nothing but the scars on his body and on his soul. 

Fucking, now he was getting all poetic and morbid, fucking fantastic. 

He could always jump ship for a bit on Nar Shaddaa, go find himself a clinic and get all cleaned up proper. Old Elsie Kordovich still had a clinic down in the Red Light Sector, far as memory served. She’d always been good for whatever bullshit he’d gotten himself into, and hadn’t ever batted an eyelid at the terrible stories that shadowed him wherever he went. 

But it’d been a long time now, over a year- long before the mutiny had gone down. He didn’t wanna sit there in some sterile white room while Elsie or one of her little nurses poked and prodded him and told him with pity in their eyes that what the sith had done to him was irreversible, that his years of violent, reckless living were being paid back tenfold in what they’d put him through in that prison. 

Ain’t no one pitied Andronikos Revel if they knew what was fucking well good for them. 

So instead, he found himself in the medbay on the Fury, currently unstaffed except for the damn perky droid who was enthusiastic if not actually useful; he marched the damn thing out and promptly shut the door behind him, hoping it’d take the hint. 

The medbay was like the rest of the ship- sleek, efficient, expensive. Brightly lit monitors with shit on ‘em that made no sense to him, and a full proper kolto tank. That sort of shit was damn expensive to maintain, and a clear indicator of the kind of wealth the sith brats threw around without thinking twice about it. Hopefully that extended to antivirals and shit too. 

He’d pulled out half the contents of the storage lockers by the time Casey found him; he heard the door hiss softly open, and turned to snarl at the droid to get out again, only to bite back the curse when he saw her standing there with her arms crossed. “What d’ya want, Rix?” he grumbled, turning back to the mess he was sorting through.

The knowing smirk on her face was fucking annoying. “Curious as to why you’re destroying the medbay, Nikki,” she said. She pushed off the wall, flicking the door pad on her way past to close them in.

“Ain’t none of your business.”

“Sure, sure, whatever you say- it’s just that that’s a pregnancy test you’ve got in your hand, and unless Bejah went and knocked you up, in which case congratulations, it ain’t gonna be much use to you.”

He scowled, cheeks burning as he tossed it back onto the desk. “Son of a kriffin’-”

“Would’a figured you’d have some experience with the old faithful piss stick, to be honest,” she mused, propping her hip against one of the beds. “You telling me you ain’t never had a scare?” 

“I ain’t the one pissing on it, now, am I?” he snarled. “Why should I need firsthand experience with ‘em?”

She put her hands up in surrender. “Woah, easy there Cap,” she said. “Just a joke.”

“Piss off, Rix,” he said sullenly. This was hard enough already without her stopping to gawk at his stupidity. He didn’t have a fucking clue what half the names on the packages meant, and he was about ready to just run the gauntlet and stab himself with half a dozen of them to see if anything killed him. 

He heard her sigh, and then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He snarled wordless at her when she reached for his hand, and she rolled her eyes at him. “Calm the fuck down, moody,” she said. She turned his hand palm up and pricked at his finger with a surgical blade.

“Ow.”

“Shut up, you baby,” she said, squeezing his finger to make the blood well on the tip. She had some weird little tab thing in her other hand, and when she was satisfied with the sample she pressed the tab to it; the blood vanished almost instantly, like it’d been suctioned up into it or something.

He watched in silence as she went over to one of them fancy scanners on the wall, inserting the tab into a slot he wouldn’t have even noticed before. He pressed his thumb hard against the small cut on his fingertip, waiting for the bleeding to stop. “What’re you doing?” he asked, even though he could guess.

Casey seemed to find this a dumb question too, if the way she snorted was anything to go by. “Checking to see how many weeks pregnant y’are, Nikki,” she drawled. “What d’ya fucking think?” 

“What, you’re a fucking medic now?”

“Always was, even back on the Princess, thanks for noticing.” She was quiet for a long moment. “Any reason in particular you’re trying to check yourself instead of going to see someone who knows what they’re doing?”

He gritted his teeth, looking to the side. “Nope,” he said. 

“You can’t bullshit me, Nikki, I know you too well.”

“If you knew even half of what you thought you did, you’d run screaming.”

“Ooh, I’m shaking in my boots, you’re so manly and scary,” she said sarcastically. “It’d be easier if you told me what you were looking to find, it’d cut down on scanning time.”

His jaw was aching from how hard it was clenched, and he chose to stare up at the roof instead of looking at the pity that was inevitably gonna be in her eyes. “Haven’t been checked since I got outta prison,” he said stiltedly. 

She sighed again, sadder this time. “Oh, Nikki-”

“I don’t want your fucking pity, Rix, so stow it.” His hands were shaking because he was angry, that was all. Not because he was emotional. Not because he was afraid. “You wanna know what I’m looking for? Anything I could’ve got in a regular brig, plus whatever those sith fucks might’a done to me.”

She didn’t say anything as she moved around the medbay, tidying up the mess he’d made and collecting up the things she’d clearly decided she needed for him. The scanner beeped once, and she went over and read the screen output, nodding, before setting it to run something else. 

He ignored her when she patted the bed, clearly trying to coax him over; he weren’t some fucking invalid, needing to lie down for a fucking needle or two. The sigh she let out when she realised he was being obtuse was a lot more frustrated. 

He didn’t get a lot of warning before she stabbed him the neck with the first stim.

“Ow! What the _fuck_ , Rix?”

She was scowling. “Oops,” she said flatly, tossing the empty chamber into the sink. 

“Now I’m glad I never knew you were a medic, your bedside manner is shit.”

“I make a special exception for special patients.” She at least gestured for him to roll up his sleeve instead of stabbing him outright through his clothes. “You wanna talk about what happened in there?”

“What do you think happened, Rix? It was a prison.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Nikki,” she said, swabbing at his arm briefly before jabbing him with the injector. He grimaced at the brief sting. “I fucking care about you, alright? Just cause you’re a dumb shit sometimes don’t mean I want you to suffer.” 

“Well, it ain’t like it was all sunshine and roses,” he said snidely, tugging his sleeve back down. 

“If you don’t wanna talk about it, whatever. I just thought you might’ve appreciated having someone who’d listen.”

He was quiet as she went about setting up the next shot, gritting his teeth to stop himself from snarling something sarcastic at her like was his gut instinct. Finally, when she turned back to him, injector in hand, he muttered “Appreciate it.”

And he did, really. It meant a lot to know that even after their breakup and even after all the bullshit with the mutiny and Wilkes and the time that had passed in the meantime, she still cared enough to ask after him. Casey was a good sort, enough to make him wonder what she was doing wasting her time on a lost case like him. 

When she was done stabbing him with various things, she rinsed her hands off in the sink and turned back to him. “Okay, so, I’ve done what I can with what we’ve got on board, but you should probably go see someone a bit more professional when you can,” she began, and he snorted.

“Ain’t I in the best of care with you, Case?” 

“I gave you a couple of rounds of antivirals, and a few vaccines and boosters. But I don’t know shit about what like, sith lightning does to people and shit, so maybe go see someone, okay?”

He rubbed at the ache on his arm where the injections had gone in. “Yeah, sure,” he said, not meaning a word of it.

“You kriffin’ liar.” She tossed a wet cloth at him, and it slapped him in the face. 

Nar Shaddaa came up soon enough, seemingly determined to drag his mood down into the grimy underparts of the city moon; he’d made his mind up at some point during the jump that he weren’t gonna get off the ship, not this time. Not like he was worried about who he’d see or nothing, or avoiding anything, he just... needed more time to collect himself. Work out what the fuck was going on in his head, for one thing, and getting pissed in the Red Light Sector and getting into a fistfight with a Nikto weren’t gonna answer anything for him. 

He was sprawled out on the couch in the main room, reading aimlessly through some dumb superspy comic (he had a year of catching up on pop culture to do, what the hell) when Casey came wandering through, looking far more scrubbed up than he would have expected for bumming around the ship. His suspicions were confirmed when she stopped over by the end of the couch to pull her boots on. 

“Where’re you going?” he asked, looking up from his datapad. 

“Gee, dad, don’t you think I’m old enough to not need a curfew no more?” she drawled.

He threw one of his socks at her. “Don’t give me that shit,” he said, but he was grinning. “You going out drinking?”

She shrugged. “Work stuff,” she said. “So maybe.”

“Black Suns ain’t got shit on Nar Shaddaa.” He paused. “Unless that’s changed while I was locked up too.”

“Black Suns don’t have much, but they got a branch here,” she said. “Dumb not to have at least something here, bad for business not to. Gotta stay competitive.”

“Organised crime, how thrillingly tedious.” She was grinning awful fierce though, as if she knew a secret he didn’t. “What?” 

She made a rather elaborate show of holding up her fingers to count on them. “Well, it’s just that, Kaltix has gone off on his spirit quest with Khem Val for a magical sword or some shit, Kallathe has gone off to have sex with cultists, I’m leaving to go partake in the thrill of organised crime, which leaves you and Bejah. Alone. On the ship. Together. For multiple hours.”

He sat up so fast that he fell off the couch; Casey threw her head back and howled with laughter.

“Don’t forget what you’re good at,” she called over her shoulder, pulling on her jacket as she headed for the ramp. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She turned back towards him, her hand going up to her face as she smirked ruthlessly; she made a vee gesture with her fingers and wiggled her tongue between them rather obscenely. Whatever she saw in his face clearly pleased her, if the way she cackled was anything to go by. 

“Have _fun_ , Nikki!”

“Get the fuck off my ship, you trollop,” he yelled, but he was grinning as he said it. 

“Fuck you too, asshole!” she called in a singsong voice. 

The clang of the airlock closing behind her seemed almost ominous, if the way his nerves seemed to jump into overdrive at the sound was anything to go by. He lurched to his feet, his hands going to his pockets before he realised he had no reason to go looking through his pockets, and then he reached for his datapad before his brain caught up and he recognised that he didn’t need that either. 

Fuck, he was dizzier than a teenage boy trying to cop a feel of a boob for the first time. 

“Nikos?”

He spun around, his heart leaping up into his throat when he saw Bejah peering almost nervously around the door from the hallway to the engine bay. “Hey, Sparky,” he said, and then immediately kicked himself mentally. Least seductive opening he could’ve gone with, fuck. 

“Are they gone?”

His skin prickled, as if the air between them was electrified, and he found himself nodding. “Yeah, Sparky,” he said slowly, “it’s just us.”

She huffed out a relieved sigh. “Thank the stars,” she said, peeling herself away from the door and all but stalking towards him. Her expression looked so severe and so serious that he found himself taking a step back, the backs of his legs hitting the couch behind him.

“Uh, Bejah, is there something-”

She all but threw herself at him, her arms going up around his neck while her mouth lunged gracelessly for his. 

His own arms came up automatically to catch her, holding her against him so that she didn’t go crashing to the floor, but he was too stunned to do much more than that to start with. When his senses came back to him, he pulled his mouth away from the kiss. “Bejah, what the hell-”

“I’ve had time to think,” she said quickly, cutting him off. “You said you wouldn’t do anything with me until I’d thought, but I’ve thought, and I’ve had time to think about it, and I want this. You, I mean. I want to be with you.” 

He stared at her incredulously. “Come again?”

She seemed to be running on nothing but adrenalin and pride right now, if the way her gaze skittered down to his chin, instead of meeting his eyes. “I’m not a slave anymore,” she said, closer to babbling now, “and I know, I know I’m not experienced and that I’m not, um, I’m not like the normal sort of people who you, um-”

“Fuck,” he supplied.

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes, that,” she said, clearly excited by the word. “But I want to, I want to be with you like- like _that_ , and you can say no if you don’t want to have to teach me, but I-” She quite visibly steeled herself. “I like you, and I think you like me, and I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I’m not a slave. I’m free.” 

She said it all so quick, like she were expecting him to interrupt or cut her off and dismiss her, and as much as it was thrillingly sexy to have her march up and declare she wanted him to fuck her, there was also something endearing about it too. He reached up and smoothed back a coil of her hair, the gentle spring bouncing back almost as soon as his hand fell away. 

“There’s more to freedom than just fucking people, sweetheart,” he said.

“Like being free to choose,” she countered, lifting up on her toes as she rested her face against his neck. Her breath was hot and sent shivers through him. “I want to choose this. I have chosen, I mean. This is what I want, Nikos.”

_I want you._

He actually didn’t quite understand the feeling her words roused in him, coming on the tail end of a day spent feeling sorry for himself and wondering whether or not anyone had actually missed him during his year locked away. He knew she just meant sex, she wanted him for the pleasure he could bring her, but at the same time... he could fool himself for an hour or two and tell himself it meant something else. 

So he smiled lazily and hid that moment of maudlin vulnerability, reaching down to cup her ass firmly in both hands; she squeaked, apparently delighted, and when she looked up he captured her mouth with his. He kissed her hard, hard enough to leave her gasping when he pulled away, hard enough that his head was spinning more than a little as he took her by the hand and all but ran with her to the crew quarters.


	8. Chapter 8

Bejah was giggling as they ran, and the sound was infectious, because he found himself laughing too as he turned and pushed her up against the wall beside his bunk, fumbling with the doorpad to lock them in together. 

“Much as I liked messing with you through your shirt the other day,” he said, his hand sliding down to thumb at her nipple until she moaned, “this’d be a lot more fun if we got ourselves good and naked.” 

“I- I have scars,” she stammered, as if she hadn’t entirely thought this through, and the reality of it was crashing down on her. 

“I do too,” he said, rushing to soothe her. “Ain’t no big thing about scars. Means you’ve got stories.” He leaned in close, pressing his nose to hers. “Means I can kiss ‘em.”

She giggled. 

“Want me to go first?” he asked, grinning when she nodded furiously. He grabbed the back of his collar and tugged his shirt up over his head, pulling his arms free and tossing it to the side.

“ _Oh_ ,” Bejah said, her eyes wide with hunger and curiosity. A man could get used to that look. 

He grinned. “I ain’t gonna break, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “You can have a play if you like.”

Her hands were shaking as she reached up to put her palms flat against his chest, and there was a look of enraptured amazement on her face as she took in the sight of him. He had to admit, it made a man feel pretty fucking smug, having a pretty girl look at him like that. It went beyond the normal hunger of his regular bed mates, sort of more like awe, or reverence. 

He was looking forward to returning the favour. 

Her breathing was ragged and heavy already. “What do I do now?” she whispered, the heat of her palms branding his skin. 

He chuckled. “Whatever you wanna do, sweetheart,” he said, his thumbs sneaking up over the hem of her pants to brush back and forth over the bare skin there. “Kissing or touching, whatever you-”

She leaned forward abruptly, as if she was worried ‘bout losing her nerve, and closed her mouth around his nipple. He grunted in surprise, and not a little bit of arousal, as she sucked hard, her tongue flicking back and forth over the nub. Shit, he weren’t expecting her to go straight for nipple play on her first foray into sex, but he weren’t gonna complain- not when her mouth was hot and wet and eager, each stroke of her tongue prompting an answering throb somewhere in his gut.

“You’re gettin’ a bit of a headstart on me there, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a lot huskier than it had been a minute ago. Little minx was gonna be the death of him and she hadn’t even gotten into his pants yet. 

She pulled back almost as abruptly as she’d lunged for him, her lips making a wet smacking noise. “I’m sorry, was that too much?” she asked breathlessly, looking adorably awkward and bashful. “I thought- it was nice when you did it to me, should I- should I not have, um- was it wrong?”

She was gonna kill him. “I don’t think there’s a thing you could do that’d be wrong, Sparky,” he said, his hands sneaking up a little higher until he could rest his palms against the bare skin of her hips. She was hot, and she was shivery, and feeling the way she trembled under such a simple touch was intoxicating. “Do ya fancy getting a bit more naked with me, or you want me to keep going?” 

As soon as the words left his mouth, he had an image of her on her knees before him, still fully dressed as she sucked eagerly on his dick with the same enthusiasm she’d lunged for his nipple. The thought alone was enough to make his dick throb. 

“I- should I? I mean, if you want to keep going, I don’t mind, but I- I don’t know, I-” 

He kissed her hard, his hands sliding around to her back to press flat against her. “Tell you what, Sparky,” he murmured against her lips, “you get yourself all pretty and naked, and I’m gonna bury my face between your legs until we’re both happy.”

“Your- your face?” 

Smirking, he let one of his hands drift down between them, cupping her mons through her pants and grinning when she moaned in surprise. “Feeling all good down there?”

“ _Yes_.”

“All hot and achey?”

“ _Stars_ , Nikos, _yes_.”

He let his mouth drift along her cheek, gently taking her earlobe between his teeth until she gasped. “I’m gonna get my face down there, and I’m gonna kiss you and suck you and fuck you with my tongue until you’ve got your thighs wrapped around my head and you’re screaming my name. You like the sound of that, Sparky?”

The desperate moan she let out was probably a yes, _heh_.

He coaxed her out of her tank top, though she hugged her arms to herself almost immediately to cover herself. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart.” he murmured, running his hands gently along the outside of her arms and kissing her softly. “Ain’t nothing about you that isn’t perfect.” 

She shivered at that, and clearly had to fight herself to lower her arms, but he felt a small pang of pride when she finally managed it. “There we go,” he said, tracing his fingers in slow circles around the dark pebbled nipples, “that ain’t so bad, is it?”

“Your pants?” she stuttered, remarkably wild eyed and breathing heavily. 

“Mm, I was thinking we might get you naked first. Can’t get to all that kissing I promised if you’re hiding those pretty parts away, now, can I?”

Bejah bit her lip. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he said, pulling himself up short for a moment, “you alright, sweetheart? Ain’t nothing to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared,” she said quickly, and then at the look he gave her she at least looked a little sheepish. “I’m a little scared,” she amended. 

“Shh,” he soothed, ducking his head down to kiss her softly. He let it linger onwards, feeling her relax by inches in his arms until she was all but melting up against him; when he could tell she’d let go of the worst of the nerves, he ran his hands down her sides, down her waist and to her hips and then gently pushed at her pants. She gasped against his mouth, and her lip was trembling a little as he sank down to his knees, easing the clothing down over each leg and helping her pull them over her feet. 

And then she was standing naked above him, gloriously fantastically naked, and maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t had anything more than quick fucks in cantina backrooms since getting out of prison, but right now he couldn’t imagine anything more fucking erotic than kneeling at her feet and drinking in the sight of her. 

“You’re beautiful, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, stroking her thigh softly. 

“What happens now?” 

He coaxed her back onto the bunk, laying her down with infinite care as he tossed the pillows around to make things more comfortable for her. Fuck, she looked so good in his bed, just like he’d dreamed she might. “Now,” he said, “we find out what drives my pretty little Sparky crazy.”

She moaned, but he started quite mundanely from where he was kneeling at the end of the bed- he picked up her foot and began to massage it, grinning at the way she sighed in surprise and enjoyment. The sigh turned into a gasp when he kissed her ankle, and he chuckled.

“Like that, do you sweetheart?”

Bejah nodded furiously, and her breathy gasps turned to exceedingly loud moans as his mouth travelled higher up her leg. 

“The whole spaceport’s gonna hear you, sweetheart,” he teased, lingering on the spot on the inside of her knee that has elicited the best reaction so far. “You don’t want them bursting in here, now, do you?”

She whimpered, and when he glanced up at her, her eyes were squeezed tight closed and her teeth were digging into her lower lip as she fought to control herself. It was fucking magical. 

“Mm, maybe you do, then,” he said, crawling up over her and slowly pressing kisses along the inside of her thighs while she writhed and moaned behind clenched teeth. “Maybe you want them all to see how you got yourself the most terrifying pirate in the Outer Rim worshipping between your thighs. Is that it, sweetheart?”

“Oh my god,” she whispered, her hips jerking instinctively as she sought something to satisfy the ache. 

He could smell her, and kriff but it was taking all his self control not to just lunge in and cover her cunt with his mouth. She ain’t ever had anything like this in her life, and he wasn’t gonna give her anything but the best of memories for this- let everyone who came after him have impossibly high standards to measure up to, heh. 

Fuck, the thought of someone else having their way with her like this probably wasn’t the best thing to be considering in this position. If anything, it just sparked a surge of irrational anger in him, a need to claim her and pleasure her so excessively that she’d never _want_ anyone else. 

“Y’alright there, Sparky?” he rasped, slowly massaging her mons; she was so wet that his fingers were already slick, even without him having ventured any further. He wanted to put his fingers up to his mouth and suck them clean, seeing if she tasted as good as she smelled.

“Nikos,” she moaned, hips jerking. “I- I want-”

She bit her lip and kept her eyes tight shut, like she couldn’t even bring herself to say it. He grinned, and leaned down to press a kiss to her hip; she all but shrieked, the sound needy and desperate. “You want my mouth, sweetheart?” 

“Nikos, please-”

“You want my mouth down here on your pretty little clit, do ya?”

“Yes!” she sobbed, her head rolling back and forth on the pillow as if she was caught in a fever. “I- I can’t... please?” 

Kriff, this weren’t gonna be no lengthy performance by any stretch of the imagination- at this rate, she was gonna come the moment he even touched her. He slid his hands up the inside of her thighs, gently pressing them apart; for a moment she tensed, her hands going as if to cover herself, but he made a _tsk_ ing sound and caught them. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing her fingertips until she giggled somewhat breathlessly. “I wanna see how pretty you are.”

That seemed to shake her. “I- I’m pretty?” she whispered. 

He nuzzled at the curls at the apex of her thighs, and she jerked violently, sucked in a breath sharply. “You’re gorgeous, Bejah, baby,” he said, before he dipped his tongue down to brush against her ever so gently.

She _shrieked_ , bucking against him so violently that for a moment he had an awkward mouthful of her. He was laughing as he pulled back, his hand firmly pressing her hips back against the mattress. “Easy, sweetheart,” he said, slightly breathless himself. “You’re gonna burst outta your skin at this rate.”

“ _Nikos_ -”

“Just breathe, Sparky,” he soothed, even as he sneakily dipped his hand between her thighs again to rub tauntingly against her entrance. “Just relax, enjoy yourself.”

A needless encouragement; he was right when he’d assumed she was wound too tight to last long, because when he closed his lips around her clit she screamed, her thighs wrapping up over his ears and squeezing as she ground herself against him. 

She was whimpering when he managed to extract himself out from her vice-like grip, her eyes glazed and her body twitching like she’d had a bad fix. 

He couldn’t ever remember being this smug before in his fucking life. “You ain’t ever had one of those or something, Sparky?” he teased, crawling slowly up her body until he was settled alongside her on the narrow bunk. 

She was panting, clearly still horny as fuck despite the orgasm, and he wanted to strut. “I- I...” She swallowed with some difficulty. “Not like- _that_.”

“You liked that?”

“I don’t even know what just _happened_. Where did I go just now?”

It took him a second to realise she was joking, and he felt like his face was gonna split from grinning so hard. “You coy minx,” he said, dipping down to kiss her.

She jerked her head sideways, tearing her mouth away from his. “Ugh, I- what is that?”

It took him a moment to realise she was tasting herself on his lips, and he nuzzled at her neck instead. “That’s what you taste like, sweetheart,” he purred. 

“It’s awful.”

“Mm, I dunno,” he said, his mouth hot and wet on her neck, “I could eat it _all_ day”

The words had the desired effect, if her sharp intake of breath was anything to go by. 

“But,” he continued, kissing down to her shoulder until he was leaning over her. He wanted to see her face again. “I think maybe this time I’ve got something else to look forward to.”

Her eyes went almost impossibly wide. 

He leaned in close, until his nose brushed against hers. “Y’want me to take these pants off, Sparky?” he murmured, relishing the way she shivered. “Want me to get naked?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“You want to have yourself a ride on a pirate?”

She bit her lip, and fuck, even with the blush she was incredibly sexy. “ _Yes_.”

He grinned. “Well, I’d best do something about that, then, ain’t I?” He rolled awkwardly out of the bed, grunting when he hit his hip on the edge of the bunk, and tried to come to his feet as gracefully as possible. It wasn’t that graceful; hopefully Bejah was too lust-addled to laugh about it. He fumbled for the drawer under the bed and pulled out his lube and his condoms, setting them down on the floor before he went to continue getting undressed.

She propped herself up on her elbows to watch him, her eyes alight with curiosity and hunger as he reached for the buckle on his pants. He felt, for a moment, a brief flicker of self consciousness at the reminder of how much weight he’d lost in the last year, how much of him had wasted away in prison and then in the blind rage that had consumed him while he’d stalked Wilkes and the rest across the galaxy. But there was nothing in her face to indicate that she found him dissatisfying, nothing to suggest she was put off by him; if anything, she only looked delighted, and that went a long way towards soothing his pride. 

She sucked in a sharp gasp when he slid his pants down over his hips, his dick springing free almost eagerly. “Like what you see, Sparky?” 

She nodded, eyes wide. 

“Mind if I join you?”

He reached down onto the floor and snatched up one of the pillows they’d discarded in their mad rush for the bed; turning back to where she lay shivering before him, he murmured gently to her as he coaxed her to lift her hips, stuffing the pillow under her ass. 

“What’s that for?” she stuttered, all but writhing with neediness; her hands kept fluttering over her skin, as if she didn’t know whether to touch herself or cover herself. 

He chuckled breathlessly, not far behind her in going out of his mind with lust. “Makes it easier for you, sweetheart,” he said. 

“Is it hard?” 

He couldn’t help it- he laughed. “Only me, Sparky,” he said, tearing the condom wrapper open with his teeth; his dick was already slick on the head, and he might have taken a second when he was rolling the condom on to just enjoy the familiar pleasure of his hand on himself. She watched him, her eyes alight with curiosity and just a flicker of desperation, and damn it if that didn’t make it sexier. “Y’ain’t ever seen vids of this?” 

She shook her head, her chest heaving. 

“We’ll go slow,” he said, trying to ignore the shrill voice in him that wanted to just to drive her into the mattress like a ravenous beast. He crawled up over her, not quite settled fully between her thighs; kriff, he felt like there were sparks coming off his skin where they were entwined, like he was buzzing with sensation and lust and need. “Don’t like something, tell me. Feels weird, or hurts, tell me. Okay?” 

“Will it hurt?” she rasped, a sudden flash of fear in her eyes.

“It shouldn’t,” he said, rushing to comfort her. He leaned up and kissed her, slowly at first but with growing heat; her hands fluttered a little at first, as if she had too many places she wanted to put them and not enough time to do it, but soon enough she had them around him, clinging tight up around his shoulders as she whimpered and writhed up against him. He couldn’t help but thrust against her, his dick enjoying the friction of being pressed against her skin. “If it does, I’m doing it wrong, and you fucking well tell me.” 

“I-I don’t-”

“You _tell_ me, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her hard. “You grab me by the fucking dick if you have to, and you say ‘ _fuck me properly, pirate_ ’.”

The moan she let out verged almost on obscene, and she kissed him so hard that he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d drawn blood. At some point in all of their rutting and writhing, he’d ended up between her thighs proper, and she’d worked out enough of the basics to get a foot around the back of his knee. “I can’t say that,” she whispered, whimpering when he bit gently at her lip. 

“Hmm, can’t you?” He braced himself on one elbow for a moment, just enough to slide his hand down between them; her whimpers turned to a drawn out wail as he thrust a finger into her, her nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave a perfect half circle of crescent moons on his skin. “Gotta hear that you want it, sweetheart-”

“ _Please_ , Nikos,” she sobbed, her hips jerking awkwardly as she tried to find satisfaction on his hand. Granted, he could’ve given her an orgasm or two to remember just from his fingers alone, but he weren’t really patient enough for that right now. “Oh stars, please, _please_ -”

Well, at least she was enthusiastically clear in what she wanted. 

He fumbled blindly down beside the bunk where he’d left the lube and the box of condoms, cursing when the outside of the bottle proved to be a little too slippery from previous uses and rolled out of reach. Lurching up onto one elbow, he was dazed momentarily by the way Bejah looked beneath him, with her black curls spilling over the stark white of the sheets, her dark skin slick with sweat like she’d been painted with stardust. Her eyes were wide and desperate, her lips swollen from his kisses, and she looked phenomenal. Actually, literally breathtaking, given that he found himself stuck staring down at her. 

“Nikos,” she whispered, her voice high pitched and needy.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful sweetheart,” he rasped, genuine wonder in his tone. 

She looked startled, her mouth forming a surprised ‘oh’ that didn’t quite manifest as sound; he leaned in and kissed her again, more gentle this time, more earnest. Stars, he wanted her so badly and she was literally right _here_ , in his arms, and here he was stalling on the sex because he’d had a moment and gone all gooey and smitten. 

Maybe prison had made him funny in the head or some shit. 

He managed to snare up the lube with one hand, only breaking away from the kiss with great reluctance in order to settle back on his knees. “This might be cold,” he warned, upending a portion of it into his waiting palm; he rubbed his hands together vigorously, trying to warm it, but she still squealed and giggled when he let it dribble over her. “Come on now, it ain’t fair to a man to wriggle about like that, it’s downright teasing.”

She bit her lip. “Well, then, you should, um-” She giggled and covered her face. “I can’t say it!”

“How are you so fucking adorable when you’re lying there asking to get your brains fucked out?” She shrieked out a giggle when he all but lunged back down again, peppering her face and neck with kisses while she squirmed beneath him. When he felt her relax to a point he felt was more acceptable, he propped himself back up on an elbow, reaching down between them to nudge her thighs apart more. She tensed again immediately, and he shushed her softly, kissing her gently as he teased her, rubbing at her clit until she was whimpering against his mouth. 

He nuzzled at her mouth, delighted by the way she panted softly. “You ready, sweetheart?” he said. 

“Yes,” she stuttered, “I mean, I think so.” 

He pulled back slightly. “You wanna stop?”

“ _No_ ,” she said instantly, arching into his touch. “ _Please_ , Nikos.”

His own breathing was quite ragged as well, and were it anyone else in his arms he might have felt a little self conscious about how out of control he felt. Bejah made him feel like a green kid again, in ways, out of his mind with lust and jittery like it was _his_ first time, not hers. 

Stars, but the way she said his fucking name made it sound like it was holy, and he was shaking from that alone. 

The sound she let out as he began to press into her had him freezing up in a panic, but she dug her fingers in harder to his back. “No, no,” she whimpered, her eyes not quite focussed. “No, keep going-”

“Y’hurting, sweetheart?” he rasped, holding himself still with immense self control. 

“I don’t- no, I don’t think so, it’s just-” She moaned in frustration, her hips moving as if to try and draw him in deeper. “Please, Nikos, _please_.”

“Kriff, Sparky, you’re gonna kill me,” he said hoarsely, the wriggling and the writhing not doing anything good for his desire to take it slow and easy for her. He kissed her hard and deep as he slid in the rest of the way, his hips flush against hers and _fuck_ \- she was so hot, and so tight, and she felt so fucking _good_. “You good, sweetheart? You good, you ain’t hurt are you-”

She kissed him so hard he felt their teeth clack together, her foot sliding higher up the back of his leg. “Do me properly, pirate,” she stammered, and that was all he needed to lose his fucking mind. 

It took them a second to find a good rhythm, because she in all her blessed enthusiasm kept trying to rush it too early, but after he took hold of her hip to guide her, they fell into sync with ease. He didn’t want to rush, because he knew she’d be sore in a few hours- first time and all,- but every time he tried to slow it on down and keep it building steady, she’d whimper and arch against him, throwing him off his rhythm. 

“Oh, _Nikos_.”

How the fuck were the sounds she was making fair at all? He weren’t no green kid likely as much to blow his load the moment a woman even looked at his dick, but _kriff_.

“Stars, sweetheart,” he panted, kissing her cheeks and her chin and her neck and her shoulders, anywhere he could reach. Kriff, she was so _loud_ , her moans matching the rhythm of his thrusts; it was a strangely honest sound, no put-on airs or faked pleasure, and knowing she weren’t doing it to please him in the slightest and just couldn’t contain her own excitement made it fucking extraordinary. “ _Bejah_.” 

“ _Nikos_ ,” she sobbed in response.

Stars, he was supposed to fucking well be better than this. He wasn’t supposed to be losing control over a starry eyed little starship mechanic, but fucking _stars_. She kept trying to jerk against him faster than he was thrusting, clearly looking for more stimulation; he propped himself up on his elbows and picked up the pace, fighting with everything in him to hold off on coming. 

Fuck, now he could see the gentle swell of her tits bouncing with each thrust, and that wasn’t helping. 

She looked out of her mind, her eyes wild and desperate, her hands all but clawing up his back; he might have a few new scratch marks tomorrow, heh. He felt electric, alive, _powerful_. “You good, sweetheart?” he rasped, desperate to know that she was enjoying herself as much as he was. “You okay, you good?” 

“ _So_ good,” she whimpered, arching against him. 

“You ready, sweetheart, you wanna come?”

“Come where?”

He couldn’t help it- he laughed, burying his face against her neck for a moment. Fuck, he missed laughing during sex. “You wanna finish, sweetheart?” he whispered, lips tracing up to her mouth. “Like before?” 

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathed, the sound trailing off to a whimper as he kissed her again. The light in the roof flickered briefly, like there'd been a powerful surge, but he didn't pay it much mind.

He grinned against her mouth. “You like that, sweetheart?” he teased, even though he was walking a tightrope himself. Her thighs were tight around his hips, her heels digging in to his ass. “You wanna come?”

“ _Nikos_ -”

“Is that a yes, baby?” Fuck, if she didn’t finish soon, he was gonna embarrass himself. The mattress was slipping on the bunk frame with the force of their thrusting, skidding back and forth with their movements, and if he weren’t so close to exploding he might’ve laughed at how ridiculous it was. 

Her answer was a hysterical wail, and he felt her body tense beneath him as the orgasm took her. He grunted and sped up his thrusts, choking a little when his own release took him; thank the fucking stars he’d held out long enough. Stars, he could just about _see_ stars, and he weren’t normally one to wax poetic about the blissful state of an orgasm. 

But then she was kissing him, needy and nuzzling and soft, and kriff if that weren’t one of the best feelings in the world. He rode the high down slowly, settling in beside her and wrapping his arms around her, murmuring wordlessly to her and kissing at every inch of her he could reach. 

Eventually they were just lying entwined together, breathing slow and deep together and running their hands lazily over one another. He could get used to this, easy.

“Nikos,” she whispered, nuzzling against his chest.

“Mm?” 

She was quiet for a second, and he thought she might’ve drifted off, or that he’d misinterpreted the word as a question. But then she shifted awkwardly, and he heard her take a tenuous breath. “I need to, um... go to the bathroom.”

He burst out laughing, squeezing her briefly to him as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “No worries, sweetheart,” he said, “take all the time you need to clean up.” 

He sneaked a look at her ass as she tried to crawl out of the bed as discreetly as possible, and he found himself grinning broadly at the way she shyly smiled at him as she peered around the door to the refresher before closing it behind her. 

Fuck, he’d gone and gotten himself smitten.


	9. Chapter 9

Dromund Kaas had never held any appeal to him, to be honest. He weren’t at all one to get himself tangled up in sith messes- or, well, he hadn’t been until recently- and there weren’t no point trying to do business in Kaas City if you weren’t dealing with sith too. So when the brats told them all to stay on the ship while they visited their sith boss, he had no objections. Weren’t nothing he cared about seeing, nothing he needed to buy, and to be honest he was getting restless from staying put on the Fury for so long anyway. Depending on where the brats got sent for their next mission, he was considering jumping ship for a bit. 

There was only one thing pulling him up short, and that was Bejah. He grinned to himself as he lounged in the pilot’s seat, feeling like a dork for it but unable to stop. Fuck, he hadn’t meant to go and find himself wrapped around some little mechanic’s finger so easily, but everything about her made him feel like a lovesick teen with his first crush; frankly the grinning was starting to get embarrassing, but every time she walked past and smiled shyly at him, it started up again. 

They’d fucked once more on that lazy afternoon in the Nar Shaddaa spaceport, and she’d just about driven him out of his mind- she wasn’t so worked up the second time, and she had a rudimentary grasp of her limits now, and they’d gone slower and enjoyed themselves and fucking stars above and below, but watching her work out what she liked was a magical experience. Even better when she was bold enough to try and tease him too, leaving little red marks on his jaw and neck as she tried to play the part of temptress. 

He normally liked to avoid more inexperienced bed partners, because the effort of trying to show them what to do weren’t often repaid in any sort of satisfactory way. They got clingy, emotional, tangling up sex with feelings ‘cause they ain’t had the practice to know otherwise. Captain Andronikos Revel of the Sky Princess probably wouldn’t have bothered with someone like his little Sparky, because he would’ve looked at her and seen drama and restrictions and written her off as an overemotional risk he didn’t want to get tangled in. But he weren’t quite that man no more, not after a year in prison and far too many opportunities to confront his own lonely mortality and his irrelevance in the grand scheme of things. Those shy smiles thrown his way didn’t feel so much like the suffocating constrictions he would’ve assumed them to be a year ago, and felt more like... like a second chance. Like she saw someone worth giving a damn about, and he wanted to live up to her expectations. 

Maybe prison had made him soft, but he liked having someone give a damn about him. 

The brats had been gone a couple of hours, long enough that he was starting to wonder whether it was worth grabbing something to eat from the galley, or taking a nap. Or finding Bejah, maybe, and seeing what sort of tinkering she was doing with all her precious little droids. Fuck, that was adorable. Fuck, he was grinning again. 

An incoming message pinged on the console, and he reached forward and kicked the button with the toe of his boot, settling back into the chair again. “This is the Fury,” he drawled, his attention already back on the datapad in his lap he’d been reading.

“Revel!” The voice on the other end of the line was Kallathe, and the connection was tentative at best, the sound scratchy and distorted. “Prep for launch!”

She sounded out of breath, and furious, and he’d been in enough scrapes of his own over the years to recognise the sound of someone who was sprinting as fast as they could away from a bad situation. He sat up sharply, tossing the datapad to the side. “Y’all need backup?” 

“Get-” The rest of her response was lost in the static, the words nothing more than louder scratches against the background fuzz.

The signal went dead. 

“Shit,” he muttered, setting his feet down hard on the floor and powering up the Fury’s engines so they weren’t jumping from a cold start. Another light began to flash on the console in response, and he could guess who this one was. Gritting his teeth, he accepted the call. “This is the Fury,” he said, forcing himself to adopt a casual tone. 

“Fury cockpit, this is tower command, please disengage your engines and transfer override control.”

_Shit._ “Roger that, tower command, just running a diagnostic on the engines-”

“Disengage and transfer override control immediately.” 

He glanced up at the faintly tinted windows of the control tower, seeing the figures arrayed against the transparisteel pane and apparently watching them. _Fuck._ “Roger that, tower command, I’ll-”

“Your attempts at delaying tactics have been noted, captain,” the voice said coldly. The ship shuddered abruptly, something interfering with the landing struts with enough force to make the Fury rock slightly from side to side. “We have locked your vessel. Please transfer override controls.”

He slammed his hand down on the communicator, severing the connection. “We’ve got a problem!” he bellowed over his shoulder, hoping that neither Casey or Bejah were dumb enough to go wandering outside to see what had caused the rocking and get themselves arrested. He had a few tricks up his sleeve for dealing with irate spaceport officials, but he hadn’t exactly ever tried breaking out an official Imperial dock in the middle of Imperial space before, either. 

Casey appeared in the doorway, all but tumbling through in her haste. “What the kriff was that?”

“Trouble,” he said, lunging out of his seat for the nearby power hatch in the wall; he’d left a tool kit in there the last time he’d been tinkering, and if they’d wheeled out maglocks to snap onto the struts, well... he’d illegally dismantled maglocks dozens of times. Weren’t nothing and no one who could keep Andronikos Revel out of the sky when he set his mind to it. “Can you block the overrides?”

Another alarm began to blare in the cockpit, this one coming from the Imperial Communications terminal, and he turned just in time to see it start playing the message across the screen. 

_Warning- by order of Darth Thanaton and Darth Derisus on behalf of the Dark Council, the following sith are to be apprehended on sight for crimes against the Sith Empire and the murders of Darth Skotia and Darth Zash. Kallathe Jen’zuska, former apprentice of Darth Zash, sith pureblood female. Kaltix Kallig, former apprentice of Darth Zash-_

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he snarled, snatching up the toolkit and pushing past Casey. “Let’s just go kill a sith or two, in the heart of sith territory. Fabulous fucking idea!”

There was a flash of colour out of the corner of his eye that resolved itself to be Bejah, sticking her head cautiously out of the engineering bay. “What’s going on?” she called.

“The brats are trying to get us killed!” he yelled back, not breaking his stride as he headed towards the airlock. The ship weren’t pressured, so it weren’t like he had to wait for the seals to pop; he slapped his hand over the door release and stormed out onto the ramp to deal with the locks. 

And skidded to a halt. 

About a dozen feet away from the ship, a bright red lightsaber held at the ready in their hand, was a sith. They were cloaked entirely in black, a hood hanging low over their face, but not low enough that he couldn’t see the glowing red of their eyes, and the pale, corrupted pallor of their cheeks. 

“Greetings,” they said, their voice a malignant purr. “My master sends his regards.” 

“Your master can fuck off,” Andronikos said, hurling the toolkit at them to give himself enough of a distraction to draw his blaster. 

The sith laughed, and sliced the projectile in two with that damned light sword, not even flinching. As Andronikos swung his arm up to fire, a phantom wall slammed into him, enough to send the blaster flying from his hand and clattering off the ramp and onto the floor of the spaceport, while the air was shoved violently out of his lungs. 

Then he felt the painfully familiar sensation of phantom fingers reaching around his throat, and he almost laughed at the irony. 

One thing that became abundantly clear as he felt the vice like grip closing around his neck was that Kallathe, for all her malice, had only ever meant to toy with him when she’d threatened to kill him. He remembered her sense of glee and mischief as she’d choked him, and the difference between that and the violent efficiency of this assassin was leagues apart. For some reason, he felt sort of amused by that; she really was just like some kind of overgrown cat, toying with a half dead mouse between her paws because she was bored. 

It was sort of morbidly touching. The brat hadn’t meant to kill him, heh. 

None of that mattered, however, given that the sith at the foot of the ramp had no interest in toying with him, and was going to kill him sometime in the next few seconds. As he scrabbled to keep his feet on the slope of the ramp, even knowing it was a futile struggle, he had a moment to mourn the fact that the shit-eating lug-heads were gonna go after Casey and Bejah next, and there weren’t a damn thing he could do to stop it. 

Bejah’s smile seemed like a real nice thing to hold onto as he died. 

Something _pulsed_ through the hangar bay, like the blast from an EMP, and the overhead lights shattered in a spray of sparks and broken transparisteel. It was powerful enough that he felt it crackle over his skin, powerful enough that it disoriented the attacking sith for long enough that they dropped him; he grunted as he hit the ramp and rolled, his throat burning from being choked and his hip and elbow throbbing from landing badly. 

The darkness and the shock of the pulse attack gave him a precious few seconds to try and recover himself, and he dove off the ramp to where his blaster had fallen earlier, rolling under it for cover. Fuck, sith had them glowing eyes sometimes, did that mean the fuckers could see in the dark? He probably only had a few seconds before they were gunning for him again, darkness or not- they could probably hunt him by his heartbeat or some creepy shit like that. 

He was gonna die. This was it, he was gonna die fighting for his fucking life against a fucking sith, because he didn’t know better not to take up with folk who were gonna get him killed. He should’ve just taken his freedom on Tatooine and walked, instead of tagging along with the brats just because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. 

“That the best you got?” he roared, his throat raw and throbbing from the attack. He shot blindly from cover, hoping he’d get lucky and land one, then squawked in undignified panic when the snarling blade of the light sword came shearing through the metal of the ramp he was cowering under. It came far too close to his shoulder for comfort, the red of the blade humming ominously as the wielder let it linger for a moment before withdrawing it. 

_Fuck._ “I’ve seen womp rats with more bite,” he snarled, throwing himself violently at the ground when he heard the warning crackle of the lightsaber again. The blade pierced through right where he’d been crouched, and he actually felt the hair on his arm lift with the intensity of the power rolling off it. “Great aim, asshole!” 

He heard the sith hiss angrily at the- admittedly pitiful- insult, and he had to wonder if they just weren’t used to folk being mouthy at them. Weren’t none of them could take an insult without throwing a tantrum. 

There was an electric whirring noise in front of him, which was odd given the pulse charge a moment ago that he assumed had taken out the power as part of the attack; he’d adjusted to the darkness just enough to make out the shape of the lower gun turrets dropping out of the undercroft of the ship. 

“For fuck’s sake,” he growled. 

The blaster bolts from the turrets lit up the darkness, momentarily blinding him before he threw his arm up to cover his eyes. From far too close behind him, he heard the sith howl in pain and fury, and he scrambled to his hands and knees to try and put some distance between them. He had no idea who was manning the turrets, whether it was Casey’s bright idea or Bejah’s, but so far all it seemed to be doing was making the assassin pissed off.

“Come out, pirate,” they called, their voice making his skin crawl. “Die on your feet like a man, or die grovelling at mine- either way, you’re going to die.”

“I take door number three,” he yelled back over his shoulder, using the wild strafing fire of the turrets as cover as he made a desperate run for a nearby pile of shipping crates. He had no idea what his plan was when he got there, only that it’d give him a few more precious seconds to work out how to not be murdered by a homicidal space wizard.

“Do you think you can defy the will of the Dark Council?”

“Do you think you can shut up for two minutes?” he yelled from cover, the ache on his shoulder making him suspect that the lightsaber had gotten closer to his skin than he would’ve liked. 

There was a thunderous crunching noise, and he nearly dropped his blaster; the sith had lunged clear across the hangar and was standing perched atop the shipping containers he was hiding behind. The lightsaber glowed red in the darkness as it pointed directly at him, reflecting against their eyes like some kind of nightmare creature. There was absolutely no way he was going to get clear in time, not this time. 

He was gonna die.

A bolt of lightning split the air, striking at the sith assassin who only just managed to get their blade up to deflect it at the last moment. Taking advantage of the distraction, Nikos stumbled to his feet, hugging the deepest shadows as he tried to put some distance between himself and the sith. Thank the fucking stars that the brats had come back, someone else could deal with this overpowered nightmare that-

“ _Get away from him!_ ”

He almost fell over his own feet- because there on the ramp of the Fury, a lightsaber in her hand that flickered with the same blue-green light of a clear mountain lake, was Bejah. Not Kallathe, whose lightsaber was bladed at both ends with a lurid pink crystal; not Kaltix, whose lightsaber was sensible and unelaborate and glowed with a plain red sheen... but Bejah. Bejah, the shy little starship mechanic who danced with droids when she was alone, who could be led astray with the power of marshmallows, who was standing and staring down a sith assassin with a lightsaber in her hand as if it belonged there. 

The sith brats weren’t nowhere to be seen.

He felt a yawning chasm opening up beneath his feet as the most blatantly obvious realisation in existence slowly began to dawn on him. The lightning bolt that had struck Kallathe and stopped her from choking him, that first day back on the ship- that hadn’t come from Kaltix. The spark that had jumped from Bejah’s hand the first time they’d met- that hadn’t been static charge. The ghost hadn’t drained the brats of their powers when they’d been fighting- Bejah had. 

Why would a sith lord have gone all the way to Raxus Prime to buy a slave to run a starship? Raxus weren’t a slave market, and there had to be far easier ways to procure a mechanic- unless she hadn’t gone there to get a slave at all. She’d gone there to get a _sith_. 

_Bejah was a sith_. 

_Not all sith are bad_ , she’d whispered, not making eye contact with him as she’d said it.

He was so colossally fucking _stupid_. 

“Ahhhh,” the sith purred, clearly delighted, “at last, the mythical mechu-deru makes her long fated appearance.”

_Mechu-deru?_

“You need to leave now,” Bejah said, her voice carrying easily over the vast space of the hangar bay even though it shook with emotion. 

“And why would I do that, my dear? We’ve barely had a chance to become acquainted yet-”

“I want you to _leave_ ,” she said, her voice just verging on hysterical.

The assassin had jumped down off the shipping crates as if it weren't no big thing to jump twenty feet without blinking, strolling forward with the easy air of a predator taking their time to hunt their prey. “I’m afraid I don’t want to go,” they said, the lightsaber held loose and ominous in their hand as they crept closer. “You killed Darth Skotia for Zash, didn’t you? No mere apprentice could have challenged a lord of the sith, but a mechu-deru...” Their laughter made Nikos’ skin crawl. “Why, it must have been laughably easy for you, wasn’t it? What chance would a cyborg stand against a girl who can command machines with her mind?”

“I’m giving you one last chance,” she said, her voice wobbling as if she was about to burst into tears. He couldn’t tell if she’d looked over at him in the darkness, but the glow of her lightsaber- fucking kriff, she had a lightsaber, _Bejah_ had a lightsaber, _Bejah_ was a _sith_ \- lit her up like some kind of holy figure. “If you don’t leave now, I will have to neutralise you.”

The assassin roared, the sound physically buffeting at him like a hurricane wind. “I will not submit to a filthy slave who sullies the purity of the sith!” 

Her chin came up, in that way she had when she was about to get all stubborn and argue, and even realising that he knew her well enough to recognise her little tells was enough to delight and despair over. He couldn’t even recognise the most blindingly obvious truth about her, even when it was practically stamped across her face. 

“Then I’m sorry,” she said, the mournful tone to her voice making him shiver. 

And then they both attacked. 

The assassin surged forward in a dizzying blur of glowing red and consuming shadow, and Bejah became nothing more than a streak of pale light. There was a sizzling screech as the lightsabers made contact, but they moved apart again so fast that Andronikos couldn’t even follow it. 

“Slave filth!” the assassin snarled, the voice echoing almost painfully, as if it had slid marginally into a pitch designed specifically to cause pain. “You sicken me!”

“ _Please_ surrender,” Bejah said, not even flinching at the insults. She blocked every slash and blow of the blade with ease, sparks flying where their sabers crossed; she was _phenomenal_ , all grace and violence and light and shadow wrapped up in one. The assassin harried her with rapid cuts and slashes, the hate and the energy literally burning off of them in a sinister red glow as they herded her across the hangar bay. Bejah, by comparison, was starting to glow an eerie blue, the light drifting around her like mist, like a nebula was forming against her skin. 

And more than that he could _feel_ it, the way they fought- the surging power of the emotions they were drawing on, the way it sent spikes of irrational anger and paranoia through him in response as it echoed through him as well. 

The assassin threw insults and curses and slurs at her that would’ve made half his old crew blush, and she slowly fell back under the assault until her back was to the wing of the Fury; from the triumphant howl of laughter that the assassin let out, he thought he’d trapped her. He thought he’d won. 

_You say that like you think I’ve never killed a man before_ , she’d whispered. He wouldn’t have even believed she was capable of opening a bag of marshmallows by herself. 

It was like it happened in slow motion, and if you’d asked him later, he wouldn’t have been able to say whether it was the most fucking terrifying thing he’d ever seen, or the most beautiful. Bejah stepped in close- too close, far too close, his heart lurched up into his throat in a panic because that red lightsaber was going to cut right through her- and held out one hand, as if in supplication. As if she was reaching for the assassin, begging them to take her hand.

The red light that burned off of their flesh flickered violently, and then surged towards her, the glow rushing on to her outstretched fingers and up her arm. The assassin very audibly gasped, stumbling to one knee almost instantly and trying to rise; she was right there, not even holding her lightsaber in a defensive stance, so all it would take was one thrust to end her.

But the red lightsaber fell to the ground with a clatter, sliding free from fingers gone numb. 

“What-”

“I have severed your connection to the Force entirely,” she said, her voice shaking. The red was still creeping up her arm, wrapping almost lovingly around her throat; her eyes were glowing, and he couldn’t tell if they were white or yellow. At some point in the last minute or so he’d sunk down onto his knees, staring in dumbstruck horror, and his goddamn stupid brain couldn’t help but make the connection between the assassin kneeling at her feet now, and the way he’d knelt at her feet several days ago in a moment of passion and innocence.

Fuck, had it all been a fucking game to her? 

“I asked you to surrender,” she continued, a beacon in the darkness even as she drained a man’s very life force. “Please stand down.”

“I do not need the Force to kill you, filth!” The strain in the assassin’s voice was horrifying, and their very tangible fear made Nikos flinch. “I can tear you apart with my hands, and feast on your heart!” 

“Please don’t make me do this,” Bejah said, practically begging. “Please, you-”

The assassin lurched up onto one leg, as if they’d expended all their remaining energy just to do that, and a clawed hand dug into the front of Bejah’s oil stained tank top. Andronikos barely even saw her move- he only saw the flash of light in response to the lunging attack, and then as he blinked at the blinding sweep, he realised the lightsaber was now embedded in the chest of the assassin, the pale blue-green tip just visible as it emerged from their back. 

His mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were burning from staring at the fierce bright of the sabers in the darkness. The assassin slumped against her, face buried against her stomach as she struggled not to drop them flat onto the ground. “I’m sorry,” he could hear her saying over and over, almost breathlessly hysterical, “I’m sorry, I didn’t- I’m sorry.”

Bejah was a sith. Bejah had just killed someone by sucking them empty of their weird magic, like it weren’t no big thing. 

_Bejah was a sith._

The assassin slid awkwardly to the floor, as Bejah slowly lost her grip on them, until they were finally just lying still and silent at her feet. The light was gone from them, the only red glow now burning from the abandoned saber on the ground. In the stunned silence that rose up after the sith had crumpled onto the floor, it took him a long, painful moment to realise that Bejah was weeping. 

“You’re a sith,” he rasped, because he didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to say.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully, not turning back towards him. 

“You’re a fucking _sith_.” He staggered to his feet, reeling a bit as if his head was spinning. 

She bit back a sob. “I’m sorry, Nikos, I-”

“ _Bullshit_ you are,” he snarled, adrenalin thrumming in his veins and his stomach churning like he was gonna be sick. He was only shaking because of the adrenalin, that was all. Not because he was frightened. Not because he was hurt. “You fucking _lied_ to me-”

“I never lied,” she said quickly, hiccuping over the words. “You never asked.”

“What, and you didn’t think that was the sort of thing that seemed relevant to know?” he said incredulously. 

“I don’t _want_ this!” she shouted, rounding towards him; he could feel her panic, and her despair, radiating out from her like it was a tangible, physical thing. “I _never_ wanted this! I-I-” The only light in the hangar was coming from her, and the discarded lightsaber on the ground, so it wasn’t hard to see the way her face crumbled as she broke down. “I _hate_ this,” she said, struggling to force the words out past her tears. “I hate _myself_.”

He had no idea what he could say in response to that. 

There was a thumping noise, and in the faint light he saw movement out of the corner of his eye; Casey staggered out onto the ramp, hands held out blindly in front of her as if she was- oh. It was probably dark in the ship too. She hadn’t had the benefit of glowing sith to light the way for her. 

“Everyone alive?” she yelled, squinting towards the spot where Bejah’s light was slowly fading. When neither of them answered her, he heard her shuffling in place, as if debating whether to go fumbling further into the darkness. “Hello? Y’all good out here or nah?”

“Stow it, Rix,” he growled, stalking towards the ramp before he lost his sense of direction in the darkness entirely. He swore under his breath when his boot caught the end of the ramp anyway, and he stumbled. 

“Oh good, I see Captain Sunshine survived,” Casey said, from somewhere off to his left. 

From off in the darkness, he heard Bejah break down into sobs. 

“Hey, hey, Bejah, sweetie, it’s okay.” There was a thud from Casey jumping off the ramp and making her way around the curve of the ship to where Bejah had been standing. She didn’t seem at all surprised to find that Bejah had a dead sith at her feet, and in hindsight, thinking about some of her more cryptic comments over the last few weeks, he realised with a burst of humiliation that Casey had known all along. She’d known Bejah was sith and she hadn’t said anything. “Come on, sweetie, we’ve got incoming. Come inside with me, okay?” 

Andronikos gritted his teeth and stalked inside. He didn’t wait for either of them.


	10. Chapter 10

The emergency floor lighting was still on inside the ship, enough that he was able to find his way to the cockpit with relative ease. Not that it was going to do much good, he thought sourly, as he surveyed the unilluminated console; they wouldn’t get far without- wait a minute. How had they fired the turrets without power? 

He heard thumping footsteps behind him, and then- “Sorry, sorry,” Bejah said, panting thinly as if it was difficult for her to breathe. “I can fix it.”

_What chance would a cyborg stand against a girl who can command machines with her mind_ , the assassin had taunted, and the cockpit flooded with enough power that he felt the hair on his arms stand on end as if he’d walked into the middle of a static storm. The console powered up instantly, the engine rumbling to life as the lights slowly flickered back on. 

Kriffin’ fuck, what exactly was a mecha-whatsit anyway? He’d never heard of no Jedi or Sith fucking up machines like this- surely if it was a normal power, they’d just be out there left, right and centre, turning off one another’s ships in the middle of a dogfight with their space magic. What the fuck was Bejah? 

“Bejah.” Casey had come in behind them, and he could see the two of them out of the corner of his eye. He ignored them as he prepped the ship for launch. “Sweetheart, let me take a look at you.” 

“I need to fix this,” she said, and Andronikos gritted his teeth and ignored the hopelessly mournful way she said it. “I didn’t mean to shut off everything-”

“I know, I know-”

“Ho, Fury crew!” A male voice sounded from the rear of the ship, and they all tensed; Andronikos put his hand to his hip, cursing vilely when he found his blaster missing. He mustn’t have picked it up off the floor of the hangar in all the confusion. “We’re coming aboard, we’re not hostile-”

“Shut up, boy!” snarled a familiar voice, and they all relaxed. Kallathe sounded pissed off, but at least she was alive. “Get out of my way!”

He could hear the growl that passed as a language for Khem Val, and Kallathe’s answer wasn’t encouraging. “Just put him in the medbay, we can deal with him shortly. He’s not going to die in the next five minutes.” 

“I can see to him, my Lord,” another unfamiliar voice said, this one sounding more like a young woman. “I have a proficiency in dark-side healing techniques-”

“I didn’t ask for your resume, girl- if you want to help, get to it. Don’t bother me.” 

Well, that all sounded delightfully ominous. Turning back to the steering console, Andronikos restrained himself from swearing again. “We’ve got power back, and the navicomp is online, so I can make a jump out of here as soon as we’re clear of the atmosphere, but that’s not gonna help with the lockdown override or the hangar doors.”

Bejah moved into the corner of his vision again, one hand raised as if she was reaching towards the nearby command tower. From here, the damn thing was a hive of activity, with flight controllers and soldiers all pressed up against the window and pointing towards them, gesticulating and obviously shouting as well. Not that he could hear a damn thing at this distance, but if he had to guess, it was probably to do with the fact that the power blackout had locked them in the tower. 

_A girl who can command machines with her mind._

He blinked, his stomach turning over in new discomfort. Had Bejah caused the _entire_ blackout? Was _that_ a sith power now, too?

There was another set of footsteps behind him, racing into the cabin, and then some over-exuberant pup of a boy came hurtling into the cockpit, half climbing into the navigator’s chair. He had an old scar across his face, and his clothing was splattered with blood- none of which appeared to be his, it seemed. Kid couldn’t have been more then nineteen or twenty, at most. “I’m here, I can help,” he said, as if he belonged there.

“Who the fuck are you?” Andronikos snarled, batting the kid’s hands away when he reached for the buttons. 

There was a burst of light outside, and they all recoiled instinctively; it was followed by a second, and then a third, and Andronikos realised it was blaster fire being absorbed by the ship’s shields. He rose half out of his seat and scowled when he spotted a half dozen imperial soldiers arrayed in front of the Fury, all advancing on the ship with their blasters held high. 

“Where the fuck did they come from?” he growled, fingers flying over the console as he locked down the ship in preparation for launch. Stars help them if the stab-happy assassin had compromised any crucial seals with his lightsaber when he’d been playing chase with him around and under the ramp. With the engines sufficiently powered, he tried to gain some lift, gritting his teeth when the Fury instead strained against a restraint he couldn’t see. “They’ve still got us in docking clamps,” he said. “Not sure if they’re maglock or electronic override, but-”

“I know, I know,” Bejah said, her hand still reaching desperately for the control tower. 

Casey had moved back up beside her. “Bejah, you’re hurt-”

“Just another minute,” she protested, her eyes glowing as she stared off blankly into the distance. “I’ve nearly got it.”

There was a crunch from the outside of the ship, and the Fury shuddered and lifted abruptly. “Docking clamps have been disabled,” Andronikos said, “but we’re still locked in-”

“I’m working on it!” she snarled, the light flaring off her abruptly with her temper spike. Outside the windscreen, he could see more imp soldiers pouring through the lift, clambering up out of the hole they’d apparently blown in the floor to bypass the lockdown. Some of them were being stopped by a few remaining freight droids that were trying to intercept them, but most of them were lining up to open fire on the ship.

Kriffin’ shit, she’d probably had the droids run interference for them. She’d sent them to their deaths to give them more time to get away, the same girl who cooed over strange battledroids two foot taller than her. 

The shields were flickering bad, the warning lights blaring shrilly on the console. “Any time now would be great,” he said from between gritted teeth, beginning to weigh up their chances if he just turned the ion cannons up to blast a hole in the roof.

“They’re getting close,” the new kid said, leaning into his personal space as he peered out the window.

“You ain’t helping kid, so move before I move you.”

He saw him gape out of the corner of his eye. “But- _I_ am a sith acolyte-”

“You are a fucking pain in the ass is what you are right now,” Andronikos snapped. “Get the fuck out of my cockpit.”

“ _Bejah_ ,” Casey urged, her tone teetering between frustrated and frightened. 

Bejah let out a sob of frustration. “Done,” she said, and above them the hangar bay doors began to slide open. 

“Thank the fucking stars,” Andronikos said, his fingers flying over the console as he spun the Fury in the confined space of the hangar and vented the burning hot exhaust gas directly at the assembled soldiers. He was only mildly disappointed that he couldn’t hear them screaming in pain. “Hold on!”

Beside him, Bejah sagged and collapsed towards the floor. 

“Fuck!” He lost control for a brief moment, enough that the wing clipped the edge of the roof. The new kid had dived for her, and at least he stopped her from smashing her face against the console. “Bejah-”

“Just fucking fly!” Casey snarled. “You can’t help her right now, just get us out of here!”

“But-”

“Sit the _fuck_ down and _fly_ , Revel! At least do the one thing you’re good at!”

He gritted his teeth as he watched the new kid heft her into his arms, her head and limbs lolling about like she was a ragdoll. There were several ragged puncture wounds in her chest where the assassin had clawed her, one of which had ripped open a jagged wound above her collarbone, dangerously close to the arteries in her throat. Her tank top was drenched in blood, something he hadn’t noticed in the near darkness of the hangar. 

_Fuck._

“We’ll fix her up, Nikki,” Casey said, even as he manoeuvred the Fury through the half open doors. The anti-aircraft guns on the roof of the spaceport were turned towards them in preparation, and the shields shuddered dangerously as the first barrage of laser fire hit them. “Don’t jostle her, kid, carry her careful.”

“It is an honour to be responsible for the Lady Amariha,” the kid said, practically bursting with excitement. Andronikos fucking hated him. “She will be supremely safe with me.” 

He considered jerking the ship sideways- to avoid blaster fire, he told himself- but seeing the kid go ass over end wouldn’t be as satisfying given that he was holding Bejah. Not that he cared about what happened to Bejah, since she was a sith and a liar.

_You’re the fucking liar, Revel,_ he thought bitterly, trying to ignore the way his heart lurched miserably as they took her away from him. 

Dodging artillery fire weren’t nothing new for him, and if anything the wild storms raging across the surface of Dromund Kaas just made it easier for him. He was just dumb enough and just desperate enough to risk flying through the worst weather before trying to break atmo, knowing any pursuers would think twice before following them into the storms. It was a fight to keep the Fury steady through the strong winds buffeting them from all sides, and more than once he felt the snap and crackle of lightning connecting with the hull. 

The shields were down to eighteen percent by the time he finally broke through the clouds and made a run for the stars, gritting his teeth as the blue of the sky faded to reveal the black of space- and several stardestroyers hanging against the inky backdrop. Even from this distance, he could see the TIEs spilling from the docking bay like ants from a kicked nest. 

“Couldn’t just have something work in my favour for once, now, could I,” he muttered under his breath, swooping down low to follow the curve of the planet and give himself some breathing room between them and the TIEs. 

There was movement out of the corner of his eye, and then someone dropped into the copilot’s chair. Glancing sideways, he found Kallathe seated beside him, a gash along her forehead that had bled substantially all over her face and a burn on her shoulder that looked suspiciously like a lightsaber wound. 

“You look like shit,” he said, for want of anything else to say.

She bared her teeth slowly, although her attention was directed to the incoming starfighters. “Just fly,” she said quietly, “and I’ll deal with the pursuit.” 

“How?”

The bared teeth turned into a feral grin. “ _Fear_ ,” she whispered, her eyes turning dark. 

“Okay, well, that’s just fucking creepy.”

“Shut up, Revel.” 

The radar beeped desperately with the sheer volume of pursuers, and he tried every trick he had to outfly them, ducking and diving and doubling back to confuse their sensors and hope their strafing fire hit each other instead of him. It took him a minute or two to realise that, even though he wasn’t actively firing on any of them except when they appeared smack bang in the middle of his firing reticle, the numbers were dropping off. 

“I think they’re falling back,” he rasped, a surge of desperate hope flashing through him.

At his side, Kallathe chuckled, the sound dark and exhausted. “No,” she said bluntly, “they’re definitely dying.” 

“But I-”

“Watch,” she purred, the sound strained. The Fury swung around again as he dodged to avoid a new assault squadron, and for a moment the three fighters flying in formation were within his sights. “Just watch,” Kallathe whispered, in a voice that made his skin crawl. 

He watched. One of the TIEs shuddered violently, as if the pilot had just had a seizure, and then it went careening into one of its fellows. They exploded in a fireball, plummeting down towards Dromund Kaas as the planet’s orbit drew them back in. The third TIE stayed on course, firing rapidly at them. 

“Kallathe,” he said warningly.

“ _Just watch_.” 

The guns went silent, and the TIE seemed to abruptly power down. It ghosted to a halt and hung there, as if abandoned, a dark phantom floating amongst the stars. Then, as he watched, he realised the TIE was moving ever so slightly, as if the two man crew within were moving about. 

He watched in horrified silence as the front window panels shattered from within, and two bodies went careening out into the vacuum of space. They were punching wildly, clawing at each other, but as the cold increased and the oxygen bled away, their rabid movements slowly ceased.

“You can sit there and gape in forced moral outrage, Revel, or you can get us out of here,” Kallathe said venomously. “Personally, I’m rather tired of fighting for today, and would like to leave.” 

“You made them jump into _space_ ,” he said in a daze, still not quite able to believe what he was seeing. 

There was suddenly a hand around his throat, a very real, warm hand, and then Kallathe was standing over him with burning eyes. “You will join them,” she hissed, her voice echoing with some horrifying darker sound, like there was some kind of nightmare creature hiding under her skin and speaking along with her. “Get us out of here, or I will make you walk out naked and singing.” 

She shoved him back painfully into the chair, and a drop of blood rolled off the end of one of the spikes on her chin and splattered on his shirt. She smirked at it, and then stalked from the room. He made a rude gesture at her back as she departed, because he was just tired enough to feel childish and just frustrated enough to want to lash out. Rubbing at his face as he turned back to the view before him, he found the sky before them clear, the stardestroyers falling away behind them as he surged around the curve of the planet. 

The navicomp beeped, and he slapped his hand down on it without thinking; the stars lunged towards them, and then they slid into hyperspace, a gentle shudder passing through the battered ship as they did so. 

Fuck, what location had he even picked? He rubbed at his eye with a fist, flicking open the screen with his free hand- Nar Shaddaa, he’d just resubmitted the last known coordinates. Well, it’d do for now; Hutt space was technically neutral ground, and there was a limit to how much weight the Imps could throw around down there without pissing off the Cartel. But, then again, the few times he’d pissed off the Imps, it hadn’t really been to the extent of killing multiple dark lords, like the brats seemed to have done. 

Or like Bejah seemed to have done, at least, if the assassin had implied. 

He stared out at the roiling maelstrom of hyperspace, his eyes aching after only a few seconds. Sith played games with you, that much he knew. Everyone knew that’s what sith did, they treated normal folk like they were playthings, there to be used and abused until they grew tired of you and killed you, or something new and shiny caught their eye and they moved on. Kallathe liked to fuck with people’s heads, he’d seen that first hand- fuck, he’d seen it a few minutes ago, watching as she drove two ordinary pilots to a rabid frenzy that had lead to their joint suicide. 

What was to say that Bejah weren’t the same, that she didn’t just pretend at being all shy and innocent because she thought it was _fun_.

He recoiled from that thought almost violently, dropping his head down into his hands. He’d stood there and bagged out the sith a dozen times or more in her presence, and she ain’t done nothing more than flinch and whisper that there were more than one way to be sith. Every other sith he’d met liked to lash out first and ask questions later, including the brats- but she’d never actively tried to defend herself when he’d gone on a rant. 

So what, maybe she just didn’t have an ego like the rest of them, maybe that was all. If she was playing a long game with him, it stood to reason she’d hide her true nature as carefully as possible. Maybe it was more satisfying to lure him in and deceive him for longer, the better to tear him apart when he let his guard down and the truth came out. 

Nobody played with Andronikos Revel and got away with it. Nobody made him a fool, not when he had any say in the matter. 

He pressed a button on the pilot’s console, and the warning message from earlier flashed up onto the screen. He read it in its entirety, his gut seething with frustration and misery as he did.

_Warning- by order of Darth Thanaton and Darth Derisus on behalf of the Dark Council, the following sith are to be apprehended on sight for crimes against the Sith Empire and the murders of Darth Skotia and Darth Zash. Kallathe Jen’zuska, former apprentice of Darth Zash, sith pureblood female. Kaltix Kallig, former apprentice of Darth Zash, human male. Bejah Amariha, former apprentice of Darth Zash, human female._

That was her face, right there, up there with a huge warning slapped beneath it and the word _‘sith’_ burning at his retinas. Was anything she’d told him true, or was it all twisted up in the lies she’d told to hide what she was? 

It had been a long and horrifying day, and he’d nearly died at least twice, and his eyes were aching from staring out at the whirling blue of hyperspace. So it was easy to tell himself that he needed to wipe at his eyes because they were sore, not because he was getting fucking emotional over a pretty girl lying to him and then throwing herself in the way of someone wanting to kill him. If it weren’t for her, that assassin wouldn’t even’ve been hunting them in the first place, so the least she could do was take the blow for him.

He didn’t forgive traitors, and liars were a close second when it came to acts of betrayal. 

He hadn’t cried since he was six, and he wasn’t going to fucking start now just because he was all twisted up inside over Bejah. 

He wiped his eyes aggressively, sniffing back the worst of the emotions clogging up the back of his throat, and pushed out of the chair. Someone on this fucking bucket better have a good idea of what they were doing next, because his choices were currently limited to _‘murder’_ and he wasn’t too fussed about who he picked to do it to. 

____

The two new additions to the ship, he soon learned, were also sith- because of course his shitty fucking luck could only continue to get worse by throwing more sith into the mix. Their names were Corrin and Kaal, with Kaal being the overexuberant puppy he currently despised for being the one to carry Bejah while she was unconscious, and apparently they had _also_ been Zash’s apprentices prior to her death.

... except that Zash wasn’t dead, and was currently inside Khem Val. He’d nearly jumped out of his skin when he’d sat down in the main room and the meat monster had turned to him with a husky giggle and tried to flirt coyly in the voice of a middle aged woman. Kallathe had promptly slapped the creature over the back of the head, which had lead to it... _pouting_. 

Nightmare material for sure.

They sat in a grim little circle, Kallathe and Casey and him, and the two new pups fidgeting nervously as they stared at Kallathe wide-eyed. She’d apparently consented to Casey attempting to fix her up at some point, because she was wearing a loose fitting top that kept her burned shoulder exposed, revealing the layers of dermal regenerative that had been carefully plastered over it. Khem Val- or Zash, he couldn’t tell if they were both in there or if it was some sort of trick, or if it was more shit to do with ghosts or something- was sitting broodingly on the end of the couch, arms crossed and beady eyes glimmering with malice. 

That seemed to be a good indication it was Khem, instead of the sith lady. 

“They’re both stable,” Casey was saying quietly, drawing his attention back to the conversation at hand. “Bejah’s lost a lot of blood, but we had enough synthetics on board to cover her. I’m spacing them out, just so as not to shock her system, but she should be done in a couple of hours.”

“And what of Lord Kallig?” the young whelp asked, and Andronikos rolled his eyes. This one was his least favourite, by far. 

“Kaltix is just- I don’t know. I’m not good with injuries from like...” Casey held her hands up and scrunched her fingers up into claws, waving them around comically. “Space magic shit, and lightning.”

“How very eloquent,” Kallathe drawled.

Casey sat up, and very pointedly poked her in the injured shoulder. Kallathe’s eyes very abruptly flared gold, and she slowly turned her head towards her. “Don’t,” she said quietly, “do that again.”

The sound of laughter startled them all. “Oh, she is _delightful_ ,” the woman’s voice said from within Khem Val. “I can see why you kept her around, my dear apprentice, she is an utter _treat_.”

“Shut up, Zash,” Kallathe snarled. “I want Khem back.”

“Apprentice, darling, you know that hurts me.” 

“I don’t _care_ ,” Kallathe said, dragging each syllable out comically long. “I want you to _die_.”

The throaty chuckle that came from Khem’s mouth was one of the creepiest fucking things he’d ever seen in his life. “You always were the most passionate of my students, my dear. Channel that passion, and use it to your advantage, and you will be unstoppable.”

“Anyway,” Casey said loudly, giving the giant critter an uneasy look, “Kaltix is unconscious. His vitals look okay, so maybe he just needs to sleep it off. He got beat up real bad-”

“We found him in a ditch!” Kaal offered enthusiastically. 

“That is to say,” Corrin said quickly, “that we were hiding from the assassins when Lord Kallig confronted Thanaton, and we saw them drag his body away, and we followed when it was safe.”

Andronikos raised his hand. “Yeah, hey so? I don’t actually know what the fuck happened that you brats pissed off two Dark Council members, and right now I’m sort of really keen on just walking away from this whole mess-”

“You can’t,” Kallathe said flatly, her lips thinning in displeasure. “The warrant for our arrest listed all known associates, and as our current pilot and...” Her eyes flicked over him once, as if assessing him, and she smirked. “And _lover_ of the renegade sith-”

He was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Casey lunged to her feet as well, and it took him a second to realise she was shouting, one hand on his chest to keep him in place while she gestured aggressively at Kallathe.

“-ain’t helping no one,” she was saying.

“I’m not _interested_ in helping anyone,” Kallathe said, looking supremely amused. “I would have thought after this many weeks that you would have realised that about me by now.”

“We can’t be fighting each other when they’re hunting us, you hold your damn tongue and be civil for five minutes, Kal.”

Kallathe’s amusement soured, her lips pursing as if annoyed. She rose slowly to her feet, and came to stand in front of Casey; she was shorter than both of them, but he still felt like he wanted to cower back from her presence. He gritted his teeth and stared down at her, holding his ground. 

“One,” Kallathe said quietly, “we are not sleeping together anymore, so you will refer to me as Kallathe, or Lord Jen’zuska. Never _Kal_.”

He made a mental note to call her Kal as frequently as possible, just to piss her off. 

“And two,” she continued softly, “I don’t need any of you in order to take down my father- so before you offer any paltry threats about needing to work together, don’t forget that I will not hesitate to sacrifice each and every single one of you if I think it will get me closer to my goal. Are we clear?”

Casey just crossed her arms and stared. 

Kallathe leaned in closer, enough that he could see the ring of red in the yellow of her eyes. “I asked you a question,” she purred.

“We got it,” he snapped, speaking up for her. He’d gone this far today without getting murdered, he wasn’t about to ruin his streak. 

“Good,” she said, apparently satisfied with the answer. “Then tell me, where exactly are we going right now?” 

“Nar Shaddaa,” he said from between gritted teeth. 

Given that he was expecting her to snarl at him for that answer, he was genuinely surprised when she nodded. “Neutral space,” she said approvingly. “We can be hidden by the cult. Reconsider our options. Excellent choice.” 

He blinked. “Uh... you’re welcome?”

She waved a hand dismissively, and then turned to the two acolytes perched eagerly on the couch. “You,” she said, pointing at the young woman. “Blonde. Come with me.”

The girl perked up brighter than a damn neon sign in a nightclub. “Me?” she said, pointing to herself.

Kallathe rolled her eyes. “No, the blonde sitting behind you. Come with me.”

The girl followed after her obediently, and Andronikos tried not to think about whether or not the kid knew what she was agreeing to. From the look on Casey’s face, he was guessing she was thinking the same thing- but neither of them said anything as Kallathe led her to her quarters and very pointedly shut the door behind the two of them. 

He felt Casey’s hand on his shoulder. “Want me to take a look at anything for you?” she asked wearily. “Ya got bruises on your neck, anything need checking?”

He shrugged her off, taking a step back to put some space between them. “If I need fixing up, I’ll go to someone who ain’t got a habit of lying to me,” he growled. 

“Oh, for-” She rolled her eyes at him- it was like an epidemic in these parts. “Get off your fucking high speeder, you asshole. It weren’t my secret to tell, now, were it?” 

“You could-”

“Nah, Nikki, I couldn’t’ve,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what her reasons were, but maybe ask yourself why she could’ve chosen to cruise along by letting everyone know she was a sith and having them all fall at her feet, but didn’t. Ask yourself why she preferred to just be a mechanic instead.”

_I hate this_ , her voice echoed in his head, _I hate myself._

“Sith play games, Rix,” he growled. “They fuck with people. That’s what they do.” 

The look she gave him was almost humiliating. “Grow the fuck up, Nikki,” she said, shaking her head as she turned and walked away, leaving him standing with the dashade and the pup for company. When the pup cleared his throat self-importantly, as if he was about to launch into some lofty tirade, he glared at him so fierce that the kid shrank back against the cushions. 

“I can see why Bejah liked you,” the sith witch said in amusement, and that was the last straw. 

He roared wordlessly in frustration, kicking at a nearby crate and sending it careening across the room; it made a satisfying crunch as it connected with the wall, but he didn’t stick around to appreciate it. He turned on his heel and stalked back into the cockpit, locking the door behind him. 

Nar Shaddaa couldn’t come fast enough.


	11. Chapter 11

At some point, someone made the executive decision to move Kaltix back to his own room, instead of keeping him in the med bay. Bejah had to stick around for a little longer, because Casey weren’t too keen on sticking her in that damn hammock she called a bed, not while she had injuries she had to keep under control. He stood in the doorway to the cockpit and watched when Kaltix hobbled across the width of the ship, managing the short few feet under his own steam and without anyone supporting him. He looked like shit, he had to say, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. The kid didn’t have any obvious injuries like Kallathe and Bejah did, but it was clear he’d been put through the wringer. 

He still weren’t clear on what had gone down with the brats and their bosses, and he was seething fit to kill someone that he’d been roped into it against his will. If he really wanted to, he could jump ship easy in Nar Shaddaa, go to ground and disappear into the criminal underworld. Reinvent himself, so to speak, and see where his luck let him wash up. 

But that was assuming the brats just let him walk, and that the people they’d pissed off weren’t so relentless that they’d follow him to the ends of Wild Space and back. He’d been a guest to sith hospitality for a year, and that was over something trivial like their dumb old relics; how far would they chase him for something as serious as the death of a sith, of _multiple_ sith at that? Darths and lords and shit, he didn’t understand their fucking rank system- all he knew was that the brats had made enemies in high places, and apparently stamped his name alongside theirs on the death warrants. 

Fucking fantastic. 

He sulked and brooded in the cockpit for a good portion of the jump, until he got sick of his own fucking company. He _definitely_ wasn’t going to check on Bejah, because he wasn’t going to go crawling back to a fucking sith, and he _definitely_ wasn’t worried about her and sick to his gut about the fact that she’d let an assassin damn near claw her throat out because she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. She’d rather stare death in the face and let it breathe it’s rancid breath on her face before she’d take another life, and she just... he couldn’t even work out _why_ it upset him so much, only that it did. 

He could hear Casey’s voice coming from the cargo bay, and the pup seemed to be with her if the self important edicts he could hear were any indication. He rolled his eyes and very pointedly turned his back on that end of the ship, which left him with a further conundrum. There was no sign of the meat monster, which implied that Khem was in the crew quarters; normally he could have gritted his teeth and dealt with the beady little eyes following his every move, but knowing there was a sith witch hiding in there too behind the dark eyes? That was way too much for him. 

He wouldn’t have dreamed of going in Kallathe’s room even if it was unoccupied- which it most decidedly was not, if the sounds were anything to go by- which meant he could sulk in the main room, just like he’d been sulking in the cockpit, or he could man up and go to check on Bejah. 

It wasn’t at all surprising that he found himself going to check on Kaltix instead. 

Kaltix was awake when he stuck his head in the door to the main private quarters- and he wasn’t the first visitor he had, by the looks of things. The ghost was back, standing at his bedside with a hand placed over his forehead as if he was- _comforting_ him? Weren’t that a new bizarrity in a sea of ‘em. 

The two of them looked up at his arrival, almost in sync with each other, and that were a bit too unnerving for his tastes. “Captain Revel,” the kid said, his voice hoarse, “I owe you my thanks, I believe.” 

He shrugged, a little awkward; he hadn’t really expected the kid to be up and awake, let alone with company to witness the meeting. “Just doing what I’m paid to do,” he said, but Kaltix shook his head, grimacing a little at the effort. 

“I don’t think there are that many pilots who could honestly have broken us free of the heart of Imperial territory,” Kaltix said. His eyes fluttered closed and he took a ragged breath. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate what you did.” 

Andronikos hesitated, his eyes flicking to the ghost for a moment before he looked back to the kid. “You, uh... you alright there, kid? You’re not looking so crash hot right now.” 

Kaltix chuckled, the sound quickly morphing into a weak coughing fit. The ghost stood silently beside him, and the blank expression of the mask it wore was more than a little skin crawling. Couldn’t tell if the damn thing was looking at him or not. “I have the ghosts of two powerful sith lords writhing under my skin,” he said, as if it was a completely normal thing to confess to, “and it is only thanks to their presence that I survived Darth Thanaton’s attack in the first place.”

“You...” That took some processing, and even then it still didn’t make a damn lick of sense. “You’ve got a ghost in you?” 

“Yes.”

“Multiple ghosts?”

“Yes.”

Andronikos looked up to the ghost at Kaltix’s bedside, certain the damn thing was watching him. “What, you just get hungry or something, gobble them up? How does that even work?”

“It is an ancient technique, binding the energy of those who linger to enhance one’s own abilities,” the ghost said, calm as anything. If Andronikos had to guess, he would’ve said the ghost sounded _proud_ of the kid. “He has done well to master it so quickly.” 

Kaltix sighed, more of a shudder of relief than anything. “Thank you, grandfather,” he said hoarsely. 

The ghost clearly noticed his confusion, because the chuckle that sounded from behind the mask made the hair on his arms stand on end. “Several generations removed, of course,” he said to Andronikos; he looked back down to where Kaltix lay, clearly in pain, and his voice turned softer. “But I do not mind the endearment.” 

“I feel like I’m splitting open,” Kaltix whispered hoarsely, his brow beaded with sweat. He looked pale as a corpse, and his hair was plastered to his head like some kind of grossly clammy cap. 

“You must control them, my child,” the ghost urged, as if it weren’t no big thing he was asking of him. Just control the ghosts of a couple of dead sith masters, hardly a blip on the radar. “You are the master, and they exist to serve you now. Subdue them.”

“I’m trying.”

It was the fucking weirdest moment he’d ever intruded on, and he had no idea whether he should make a hasty exit, or whether his departure would be taken as an insult. He rubbed a hand awkwardly over his head and then crossed his arms rather firmly, at a loss as to what to do with his hands or whether he should be watching or whether he should be looking away. What was the expected etiquette when a sith was in pain? 

Shit, why the fuck was he even bothered by what was polite when it came to sith anyway? Weren’t like they extended any sort of courtesy in response to the grovelling regular folk around them. 

He gritted his teeth, and looked away. 

“You’re angry at me.”

The statement took him by surprise, and he looked back to find the kid looking at him, his eyes clouded with pain. He looked... young, and weak, and it was uncomfortable to look at someone so vulnerable and so fragile and know that they were a sith. Sith were supposed to be psychopaths, tyrants who used the magic in their fingertips to bring pain and destruction. He’d experienced that firsthand in prison, after all. They weren’t supposed to be young kids struggling, or pretty girls with a conscience. 

Everything was wrong. 

He shrugged again. “Figure I’ve got a right to be,” he growled, not really looking to get chewed out by the kid for his insolence. His tolerance for sith bullshit was paper thin right now. 

Kaltix surprised him again. “You do,” he said, and Andronikos figured this had to be about the longest conversation the two of them had ever had, short of the few they’d had on Tatooine in the desert out of sheer necessity. He couldn’t really say he’d gotten to know any of them, not even Bejah, it seemed. “I only mention it because I can sense it.”

“If you’re looking for an apology, you can-”

“You misunderstand me, captain,” Kaltix continued. “It helps. The emotions, I mean. I can draw on it, and it- it makes it a little easier to cope.”

He hesitated at that. “You’re like... siphoning off of me?” He didn’t know if he liked the sound of that. Being some kind of emotional smorgasbord for a sith. 

“Not exactly,” Kaltix said hoarsely. He blinked slowly, as if he was struggling with the pain. “It’s like... sunlight. I can stand in the sunlight and it will warm me, and I’m not taking anything from the sun itself that wasn’t already there. I’m not draining the sun, just using the energy that already exists.” 

“Great, so I’m your own personal power cell,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t I feel special.”

Kaltix’s eyes fluttered closed again, and he thought after a moment that he might have passed out. The ghost hovered at his bedside, unspeaking and unmoving and entirely too creepy. He’d just about made up his mind to leave again when Kaltix spoke abruptly.

“I’m sorry, by the way.” 

The anger in his gut spiked sharply, and he had to grit his teeth not to snarl an answer. “You what?”

“I’m sorry,” Kaltix repeated. “We should have told you about Bejah sooner.”

The retort was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “Yeah, well, that’s just par the course for you sith folk, isn’t it? Y’all like fucking with people for fun, so it’s not like I should have expected any different.” 

“Do not speak so disrespectfully to my descendent,” the ghost said, with enough force that Andronikos felt it surge over his skin. 

“Grandfather.” Kaltix reached up a hand, as if he was trying to pat him to console him; it was almost funny. “He has a right to be angry.”

“Damn fucking right I do,” he drawled, smirking at the ghost. Could you fight a ghost? He was willing to try. Punch it right in it’s smug asshole sith face.

Kaltix shivered- or maybe convulsed was the better word, if the grunt of pain he let out was anything to go by- and Andronikos had to look away uneasily at the way his face was contorting. Like it was trying to change shape or something. Creepy fucking sith shit, stars above. After a moment, he seemed to settle again, panting weakly, and Andronikos thought about just leaving him to it. He seemed to have enough on his plate already dealing with his two new inhabitants without trying to talk to him as well. 

“It was never my secret to tell,” Kaltix rasped, clearly determined to carry on regardless of the ghosts throwing a tantrum in his head. “Bejah never wanted to be known as a sith, and we respected that- and it worked to our advantage numerous times for people to underestimate her.”

_I hate this_ , she’d said in a broken voice, _I hate myself_.

“Yeah, sure,” he said tersely. “It _really_ worked well to have me underestimate her, since I was such a threat and all. Good job there.” 

“You know, captain, I can understand your frustration and sympathise with you to an extent, but you really need to stow the attitude.”

He blinked, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. “Come again?” 

Kaltix turned his head towards him with some obvious difficulty, but his face was set was he glared at him. “If you think that Bejah kept the truth from you out of some deranged pleasure in deceiving you, then you honestly know nothing about her.”

He couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d stood up and clocked him square in the jaw. Not to say that he didn’t think the kid had a durasteel spine, ‘cause he’d seen him stand up to Kallathe in all her glory, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected him to call him out over the way he treated a lover. “And why the fuck should your opinion matter to me?” he snarled, bristling. “You’re a sith, just like her.”

“How do you think _any_ of us become sith, captain?” he asked, a trace of something sarcastic in his tone. “Sheer dumb luck. There is no room for shades of grey in this galaxy, no place for people like Bejah and me. We are sith because there is _nothing_ else for us to be.”

“Ain’t no one forcing you to go out there and-”

“Do you think the sith gave us a choice when they found us, captain? Do you think we were asked politely whether we wanted to enrol in the academy?”

He gritted his teeth. “I can’t see Kallathe being all cut up about being recruited,” he said snidely. 

Kaltix laughed hollowly. “And for every one acolyte like Kallathe, hungry for power and acclaim, there are ten of us scared out of our minds and trying desperately not to die. And the masters know this, and they feed off of it, and they turn us on one another like rabid beasts and in our desperation we allow it. They make us fight again and again and again until we break on our opponents sabers, or we survive with bloodied fists. They throw increasingly impossible tasks at us with no expectation of our survival, only to teach us humiliation and pain.”

“It teaches you strength,” the ghost said dismissively.

“It teaches us to _hate_ ,” Kaltix snarled, apparently rather passionate about the subject. “We are kept afraid and angry and those of us that survive long enough to leave the academy as an apprentice are husks of what we were.”

“And then you walk out to be kings of the fucking universe,” Andronikos sneered. “Spare me the sob story- you think you’re the only ones who got the shit kicked out of you to make you grow up?”

“Quite the opposite, captain, or have you forgotten I was a slave first?” Kaltix turned his head to the side and coughed, his fingers tightening against the sheets and a vein standing out in his neck. “The _galaxy_ is not kind, and the _sith_ are not kind, and the fact that Bejah survived both with her gentleness intact is a testament to the goodness of her heart. If you choose to see her very justified caution as some sort of snare or trap, that says far more about you than it does about her.”

“She’s a fucking _sith_ ,” he snarled, forgetting his common sense and the fact that he was currently yelling at one of those very same fucking sith. 

“Because she wasn’t given a _choice_!” Kaltix shouted in response. “Just like _I_ wasn’t given a choice! Do you think that being a sith is something imprinted on our DNA, an undeniable shackle of fate?”

“That’s not-”

“If the Jedi had gotten to us first, we’d be Jedi. If neither of us had ever been stupid enough to use our powers so publicly, we’d probably still be slaves. But the sith found us, and our choices were limited to obedience or death. Or do you expect me to believe you’ve never done something regrettable before in order to ensure your survival?”

The words cut him deep, and it galled him to think a sith brat was taking the moral high ground over him. “I ain’t taking the word of no uppity little shit barely out of kids’ clothes,” he said, but Kaltix just rolled his eyes. 

“I’m older than you, Revel, by quite a few years-”

“Bullshit, you’re fucking twelve if you’re a day.”

“How ironic that you picked twelve as an example, because that’s how old I was during the Battle of Alderaan, when I was first taken as a slave by the Empire.” 

Andronikos stared at him incredulously, not quite able to believe that the kid had said that with a straight face. “Okay, well, clearly this whole deal with the ghosts has rattled your brains a bit, I’m just gonna leave you to it-”

“I was twelve during the Battle of Alderaan, and I was sold soon after in Hutt space,” Kaltix continued, as if he hadn’t interrupted him at all. “During a raid on the farm I was kept on, I was captured to be sold on again, but the raiders got greedy and decided to try and swindle the Hutts for more credits, so they ran with their precious cargo of frozen slaves. Only, they were too greedy, and the raiders tried to murder each other to reduce the number of people the profits needed to be shared with, and the entire crew wiped themselves out.”

Arms crossed stiffly, shoulders tight with the tension he was holding from the need to lash out, he forced himself to shrug. “Slavery’s a dirty business, and the folk who run in it are scum,” he said. “That ain’t surprise me one bit.”

Kaltix laughed shakily, a little bit of the wind knocked out of his sails at his grudging retreat. “Moral standards, captain?” he asked. “From you?”

“I ain’t taking a lesson in morality from a stars damned sith, kid, watch yourself.” 

The kid went to speak again and then visibly stuttered to a halt, clenching his teeth almost violently as his face screwed up in pain. His body went rigid for a moment, alarming Andronikos enough that despite his bad mood he still pushed off the wall.

“Y’alright, kid? Want me to fetch someone?”

“The spirits of the ancient lords challenge him,” the ghost said calmly. “He is simply asserting his dominance over them. In time, they will accept his mastery over them, and will settle.”

“Yeah, because he looks like he’s really enjoying the experience so far,” he said sarcastically. 

“Strength is not derived from comfort and enjoyment, Captain Revel,” the ghost said. “Strength is determined through trial and adversity, and should he fail at this task, then he was not worthy of such strength to begin with.”

If there was one thing sure to get his blood boiling other than people stabbing him in the back, it was fathers and father figures being assholes. He stabbed a finger towards the ghost. “Shut the fuck up, you misty dickhead,” he snarled, stomping up to the other side of the bed. “Suffering don’t make folk into better people, for fuck’s sake.”

“You do not understand the ways of the sith, Captain Revel.”

“I don’t need to, and I don’t want to,” he retorted. He looked down to where Kaltix watched him with pain clouded eyes, sweat making his pale skin look clammy. “What do you need, kid, you need a pain stim? Myocaine? Want to get blackout drunk?” 

Kaltix laughed at the last option. “Someone told me that Force users have a higher tolerance for alcohol than other people, so I’m not sure that that’s an option,” he said.

Andronikos thought of Bejah, on her knees in a filthy backstreet on Alderaan, throwing up after a single drink. “Trust me, kid, that ain’t the case.”

“You’re thinking of her?”

The observation took him off guard, and the cautious warmth he’d been starting to feel towards Kaltix came crashing back down again. “What the- you in my fucking head or something?” 

Kaltix extended a trembling hand towards him, as if to wave away his concerns. “Please calm down, captain,” he said. “Your mood changed rather dramatically, it would be hard to say I _didn’t_ notice it.” 

So he couldn’t even keep his fucking thoughts to himself around these parts. Fantastic. “Watch yourself, kid,” he muttered, even as he leaned over him to fix his pillow for him. He held out a glass of water from the bedside and waited for Kaltix to sip weakly at it, leaving a ring of condensation on the table when he set it back down. “I ain’t here for no heart to heart chitchat.”

“But you _are_ here because you’re confused,” Kaltix rasped.

“You know, for a sith brat, you really like to think of yourself as some kind of dispenser of father wisdom or some shit.”

Kaltix smiled faintly again. “Well, I _am_ older than you, after all.” The smile faded. “And Bejah reminds me a lot of the sister I lost a long time ago.”

Andronikos found himself sinking down onto the edge of the bed, his hands hanging loose between his knees. He still had blood on his fingers, and he couldn’t remember whose blood it was. “You had a sister?” he asked quietly. 

“I think so,” he said. “I mean, I know I did. I just...” 

He trailed off, and Andronikos didn’t know what to say in the awkward silence. 

“It’s been over twenty-five years,” Kaltix said finally, “and whatever brain damage I sustained from my head injuries when I was taken captive have made quite sure that those memories are gone forever. I don’t remember her name, or what she looked like, or anything about her really- just that she was real, and that I loved her.”

Andronikos cleared his throat. “I’m, uh.... I’m sorry to hear that, kid.”

“I’m older than you,” Kaltix murmured drowsily. “I should call you ‘ _kid_ ’.”

“Don’t count,” Andronikos said. “You got to nap for twenty years. Not the same as the lived experience I have to offer.” 

“Mm, yes, I can see the lived experience you have in all the lines on your face.”

“Don’t you go mocking a man’s skin care routine, kid, that’s grounds for a duel or some shit, at least.”

Kaltix chuckled, his eyes fluttering shut. “Captain Revel?” 

“Mm?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it was clear he was losing the fight to stay awake. “About all of this. Getting you caught up in my mess, and everything with Bejah. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Taken aback by the apology, and the apparent sincerity of it, Andronikos rubbed wearily at his face. “Not a lot you can do when sith get themselves in a temper,” he said gruffly. 

“Should I take that as a compliment, captain?”

He couldn’t help but smile faintly. “Heh, take it how you want, kid.” He paused. “And you don’t have to go calling me captain all the time. Too damn formal for your own good.”

Kaltix took a long moment to answer, and Andronikos was beginning to suspect he’d fallen asleep. “Just trying to be polite,” he said finally. 

“You’re making me feel like a fucking schoolmarm,” he said, “just call me Nikos, or Andronikos if you have to.”

“Andronikos then,” he said. 

He didn’t say anything further, and after a moment the timbre of his breathing changed to indicate he had indeed fallen asleep. Andronikos glanced over at him, strangely relieved to at least see his features at peace, even if he still looked exhausted; he could relate, right now. 

“You have my thanks, Captain Revel,” a voice said behind him, making him jump. He was halfway to his feet when he remembered the ghost, gritting his teeth before he twisted to look over his shoulder. The damn thing was still standing on the other side of the bed. “Your efforts to see my descendent to safety-”

“I didn’t fucking well do it for you,” he snapped, climbing to his feet properly and wiping clammy hands on his pants. The splatters of blood made his fingers sticky, and he felt the stress of the last few hours abruptly start to crash down on him. 

“Nonetheless, you have my gratitude.”

“Keep it,” he snapped, stomping towards the door. “Last thing I want is some eldritch abomination owing me a favour.” 

Sort of made a man wonder what he was doing on a ship full of them, though, when he kept swearing he wanted nothing to do with them. Nar Shaddaa, on Nar Shaddaa he’d make his choice about whether to split or not, based on how bad the heat was on them. 

And maybe, just maybe, he’d be lucky and Bejah wouldn’t wake up before he fled like the coward he was.


	12. Chapter 12

Nar Shaddaa was a sight for sore eyes after the last day or so, but it still hit him like a double edged sword- it was on Nar Shaddaa, after all, that Bejah had all but thrown herself at him, all virginal curiosity and nerves. It was here that he’d succumbed to his desires and taken her to bed, and stars above if that didn’t feel like it was a lifetime ago right now. It’d only been a few days, in all honesty, but so much had happened in so short a time that it might as well have been a couple of months. Fuck, he was pretty sure there was still the faint remnants of a bruise or two on the juncture of his neck and his shoulder, where she’d gotten a little too overeager with her nibbling. He couldn’t convince himself that it was all in the past when he could still see the reminder of her on his skin when he looked in the mirror. 

The smuggler’s moon hung before them, crisscrossed with a glowing spiderweb of lights while Nal Hutta sat beneath, a swirling morass of greens and browns and splotches of white clouds. No ominous fleet of Imperial destroyers hanging waiting against the stars, there to blast them out of the sky and wipe all trace of their existence from the galaxy.

Well, something had to work to their advantage for once. 

Kallathe was back in the copilot’s chair as they circled the moon and headed for the main spaceport. She absently flicked at a few buttons on the console, returning his glare flatly when he scowled at her for interfering. When the communicator chimed she sent a spark of static shock at his hand as he reached for it, enough that he squawked and snatched his fingers back, rubbing them while he scowled. She smirked, and hit the button herself. 

A young, dark haired woman appeared on the holo between them, her attention fixed entirely on Kallathe. Her face lit up so bright she damn near went nuclear at the sight of her. “My lord,” she breathed, clearly enraptured. 

Kallathe’s smirk turned more predatory. “Rylee,” she purred. “What a _pleasure_ it is to see you again so soon.” 

He didn’t need to ask what _that_ meant, not when she said it in that tone, but he cast her a sour look all the same. He weren’t one to criticize folk for their promiscuity given his own sordid past, but Kallathe’s growing roster of bedmates irked him- one, because he got the distinct impression that some of the girls she took up with were a bit too starstruck to properly say yes to her, and two, because he couldn’t rightly tell if she’d tried those tricks on Bejah too. Most of the time he wouldn’t have cared one way or the other who his lovers took to bed, as long as they were honest about it, but Kallathe...

Girl gave him the heebie-jeebies something chronic. He didn’t like thinking about her getting her hands on Bejah-

Kallathe took a sharp breath in, her smile widening again. “You _reek_ of jealousy, Revel,” she murmured under her breath. “You are a man of such violent passion. You should embrace that.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed back to her. 

The young woman on the holo seemed to sense she was at risk of interrupting something, because she hesitated quite noticeably. “I... My lord, we were not expecting you so quickly, we are- we have hardly begun to make progress on the plans you had for us-”

“Rylee, you could _never_ disappoint me,” Kallathe said, her voice promising sex and ecstasy; the offer was blatant enough that Andronikos felt his face heat with second hand embarrassment, and he looked away. Not fast enough, though, given that he caught the blissful look on Rylee’s face. “You have always done _everything_ I could have asked of you.”

“Yes, my lord,” came the breathless answer.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered. 

Kallathe’s husky chuckle sent a shiver down his spine for all the wrong reasons. “We will need to stay for several days, I believe,” she continued, apparently enjoying his discomfort. “I’m hoping you can accommodate us for such a long, drawn out visit?”

The girl actually moaned. 

Andronikos spun his chair and put his hands on the arms to push upwards. “Clearly I’m interrupting, so I’m just gonna go,” he said. 

“ _Sit. Down_.” All traces of humour and sex were gone from Kallathe’s voice, and when he glanced over at her, her expression was one of scarcely contained irritation.

Maybe it was his bad mood, maybe it was just that he liked poking at danger sometimes. Maybe he just didn’t like being told what to do like he was some grunt back in the army again- and _especially_ not by some psychopathic space wizard who seemed to delight in pissing him off. 

Whatever it was, he very pointedly stood up. “I weren’t even up when you said it,” he said dryly. 

“Sit _down_ , and land this ship, and do _not_ defy me again,” she said slowly, “or there will be _consequences_.”

His collar felt a little too tight, and he wasn’t sure whether she was subtly reminding him of her powers or whether his survival instincts were screaming at him to remember the time she’d choked him for being mouthy. He had shit survival instincts, to be honest. 

“You stop having holo sex with your little lackey here, and speak to me with respect-”

“If I see someone worthy of my respect, I’ll be sure to change my demeanour accordingly, but right now all I see is a middle aged man throwing an overly excessive tantrum because he’s not the centre of the galaxy anymore.”

He took a step towards her before he could think better of it; Kallathe didn’t even blink, but he found himself completely frozen, trapped within his own body as she smirked up at him. 

“Temper, temper, Captain Revel,” she drawled. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen- I’m going to let you go in a moment, and you’re going to sit back down and you’re going to pilot the ship like a good little captain, and get us safely into berth without drawing any unnecessary attention to us. Are we clear?”

It was probably a good thing he couldn’t physically answer her, because his response would probably have gotten him murdered.

“Rylee,” she said, turning back to the woman waiting patiently on the screen, “we have wounded who will need somewhere private to recover, and we’ll need false credentials for the Fury. See what’s available, there’s usually a good selection.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Has there been anything on any channels regarding us? Any warrants or warnings?”

“No, my lord. Not even on the local Imperial channels you had us tap into.”

Kallathe chewed on her lip, her teeth terrifyingly sharp and- since he was frozen in place and had to stare at her anyway- embedded with gold jewellery, like the rest of her face. “No bounties placed on known associates?”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her shake her head. “No, my lord. It’s been completely silent.”

She sat back slowly, like a cat reclining on a lounge. “Interesting,” she mused. “I expected my father to push for an internal approach, but for Thanaton to agree with him...” He had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, and it wasn’t like he could answer anyway. She shook her head. “No matter.” 

She took him by surprise by climbing sinuously to her feet, moving like she was liquid instead of solid; she had the sort of grace that would turn anyone’s head, regardless of what you normally found attractive. It was like seeing a predator in the wild, being entranced by the power you knew it had and horrified by the threat it posed at the same time. He told himself he wouldn’t’ve flinched at the way she moved in so close to him, but... honestly, if he hadn’t’ve been frozen in place, he couldn’t say that. 

“I’m going to let you go now,” she said softly, her mouth close enough to his that he could feel her breath on his lips, “and you’re going to sit down like the good little pilot you are, and you’re going to land us safely.”

He hoped that the murder in his eyes adequately conveyed how he felt about her in that moment. 

Kallathe smirked, and reached up to his face; he felt himself recoil, and he definitely knew without a doubt that he would have flinched backwards when she ran a finger down the line of his jaw. “And one more thing,” she said, her voice disturbingly polite and almost gentle. “I know that Kaltix will not have said anything about it, because he’s a coward, and I know that Bejah will not say anything, because she cares for you-”

_Bejah cared for him?_

“-so let me be very clear on the subject instead,” she said, smoothing her hands over his chest as if she was fixing his shirt for him. The intimacy of the touch revolted him. “If you hurt Bejah anymore than you already have, I will kill you. If she dies from her injuries, because she wanted to save your wretched life and she should have just let the assassin kill you and use the distraction to escape, I will kill you.”

He wanted to argue in his defence, he wanted to point out that Casey had said she’d be fine, but... even if he hadn’t been frozen, he couldn’t honestly have said that he’d have the courage to defend himself. If Bejah died because she couldn’t bring herself to hurt another person, would he be able to forgive himself for standing dumbstruck and gaping like a fool while she’d damn near had her throat clawed out? 

He was a bad person, he knew that. He’d killed plenty of people, stolen money and property and ships. He’d delighted in the pain and misfortune of others plenty of times throughout his life, murdered folk in cold blood just because they annoyed him or bored him or because he was drunk. He had a litany of sins bigger than a Hutt’s appetite, and he weren’t fussed about it most of the time. 

But if the impossible happened, and Bejah died? Yeah, he probably deserved whatever Kallathe wanted to do to him. 

Something in his expression must have given him away, because the smile widened on her face. “I’m so glad we’re in agreement,” she cooed, taking a step back from him. “I, quite frankly, would be more than happy for you to just vanish once we arrive on Nar Shaddaa. It’s a threat to your life to stay here, after all, and you can hardly be willing to gamble your safety on the possibility of sex.” 

Unbidden, he thought immediately of Bejah’s smile, and the way she’d laughed so joyously as she’d played in the snow back on Alderaan. The way she danced so badly with her boxy little gonk droid when she thought no one was watching, and played her music far too loud. The way she gravitated towards bright colours, the unbridled wonder she had for the world around her and the things it had to offer her. The way she’d kissed him after they’d had sex, lying drowsily together and still touching him like she couldn’t believe he was real. 

The way she’d cried like her heart was breaking as she’d killed a man to save his life. 

_Fuck_. He was in love with her. 

“I trust I’ve made myself abundantly clear,” Kallathe said, patting him on the cheek. He felt a zap on his skin, like a static shock had jumped from her fingers onto his face, and he winced- and to his surprise, his face responded. Unfrozen, he lurched abruptly sideways as he lost his balance, catching himself on the pilot’s chair at the last moment. “If you’d be so good as to bring us down in a timely fashion, I’d appreciate it. I’m dying for a bath.” 

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” he rasped, his throat raw as if he’d been choked again.

She paused in the doorway, throwing a smirk over her shoulder. Her eyes glittered with amusement. “You have no idea how accurate that is,” she said, before sashaying from the room. 

Behind him, someone cleared their throat, and he cast a withering glare at the still active holo. “I’ll have transport organised, and send Destris to escort you all to safety,” she said with forced politeness. “How many have you aboard, and how many injured?” 

He gritted his teeth. “Send transport for seven,” he said. 

“Are there seven-”

“I won’t need transport,” he snapped. “And one injured. Do whatever the fuck you want if you think it’s worth getting back into her bed.”

He cut off the call abruptly, slumping down into the pilot’s seat and closing his eyes. 

_Fuck._

____ 

They had no trouble getting clearance for landing- Nar Shaddaa was always good about looking the other way about ship registrations and passenger manifests and the like- and it only took them twenty minutes after his confrontation with Kallathe before he was bringing the Fury in to the bay reserved for them, hoping the landing struts weren’t too damaged from the maglocks back on Dromund Kaas. 

The ship shuddered slightly on touchdown, listing ever slightly to the left; he grimaced. 

Over near the lifts, there was some young looking whelp- stars help him, was everyone around him barely out of school?- who was sprawled excessively over the nose of a multi-passenger speeder, with more than enough room for the lot of them. There was even what looked like one of them fancy repulsorlift med-units propped up against the side of the speeder, the kind that floated along beside you without needing to be lifted, letting the medics keep their hands free for treating the patient. 

Bejah didn’t need that. She was fine. She just had a bit of a scratch, that was all. 

The Fury powered down noisily, a worrying whine coming from the engines now that he stopped to actually listen to it. They’d need to spend a lot of money on repairs, probably replace a few parts; if the front left strut was salvageable, he’d eat his boots. 

He could hear movement out in the main cabin, voices raised in conversation; he didn’t really want to have a confrontation with Casey, or Kaltix, but he didn’t know what choice he had. There was nothing in his bunk he couldn’t replace, given that he ain’t had a lot when he’d come on board a couple of months ago anyway. If he stopped to pack a bag, Rix’d get suspicious at the very least. 

All he wanted right now was a clean break. 

He snared his jacket off the back of the chair and tugged it on hurriedly, patting down his pockets to make sure he at least had the essentials. Commlink, credit chip, vibroknife. It’d be nice to have a blaster, but he’d dropped his good one back in the hangar on Dromund Kaas. He’d just have to get another one. 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Nothing else for it. 

He stalked through the main room and made a beeline for the airlock, doing his best to tune out the buzz of activity going on around him. 

“Hey, Nikki,” Casey called distractedly, and he gritted his teeth. “Can you give me a hand with this?”

He ignored her, and kept walking. The airlock was in front of him, and he smacked his palm against the release pad. 

“Nikki?” 

His ears popped as the seals broke on the airlock, and the rank, smoggy air of Nar Shaddaa burst in through the door. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and charged down the ramp, not even waiting for it to fully extend; not that it did, for that matter, it groaned as the jagged metal from the lightsaber holes caught on the casing, and it stopped about a foot from the ground, grinding to a halt. He jumped onto the duracrete floor of the spaceport and kept walking. 

The kid on the speeder looked far too smug for his own good, and he slid down onto the ground as Andronikos drew level with him. “Hello, sir,” he began, but Andronikos all but bared his teeth at him.

“Don’t ‘ _sir_ ’ me, you little shit. Do something useful instead of lounging around and go help the folk onboard.” 

Looking taken aback at the rude welcome, he said “Uh... of course, I’ll, um-”

Andronikos didn’t wait to hear what he wanted to stutter his way through. He stalked towards the lifts, ignoring the fact that he could definitely still hear Casey calling his name from inside the ship. _It’s a clean break_ , he told himself. 

He punched down on the lift button, and turned just in time to see the doors close, leaving him with his last glimpse of the Fury. Good ship, she was. He’d miss piloting her. 

Good mechanic, too. 

He slumped back against the wall of the elevator, letting his head tip back and his eyes slide shut. He was Andronikos Revel, former captain of the Sky Princess, feared pirate and all round asshole, and he weren’t gonna go letting no sith brats tie him to them like he were no better than a servant to them. He flew for no one but himself. He fought for no one but himself. And he weren’t gonna get himself tangled up around a pretty girl just because his heart were dumb enough to follow his dick. 

He laughed hollowly. “You’re a goddamn fucking liar, Revel,” he said to himself. 

It was a twenty minute ride with good traffic to the Red Light Sector, and there definitely weren’t good traffic out in the skies tonight; he had to duck and dodge more than a senator up for tax evasion, and more than once he ended up with a face full of exhaust fumes from some asshole cutting in front of him too close. His coat reeked of sweat and smoke by the time he came down just off the main promenade in the sector, all but shoving the bike at the waiting droid in his need to keep moving. He didn’t want to stop, because if he stopped at all he’d have to think about what he was doing, and right now he really didn’t want to think. 

His pocket buzzed, and he fished his commlink out of his coat as he walked to find seven missed pings from Rix, and two from an unfamiliar number. Probably one of the sith brats, either Kaltix trying to get him to come back or Kallathe pretending at it-

-and he probably needed to start including Bejah in the category of sith brats, too. _Fuck._

He’d spent so much time on Nar Shaddaa over the years that parts of it were just about a second home to him, in a lot of ways, and his feet fell onto familiar sidewalks without him really having to think too much about it. The neon lights washed over him without him really noticing, and he shrugged off the offers from the dancers working out the front of the clubs to draw in more patrons. The air was thick with the rancid smell of ten million beings all living on top of each other in a tiny district, all piss and vomit and sweat and beer. Things were left to rot in the alleyways he passed, some of them possibly bodies; he didn’t look twice. This was Nar Shaddaa, and nobody looked twice. 

His steps took him to a dive that looked vaguely familiar, and he knew he’d drunk there more than a few times with the crew of the Sky Princess back in the day. That was good, he needed familiar things from his past right now, he needed to remember who he was and what he stood for. He was a pirate, a rogue, a monster. He didn’t need no fucking lightning fingers to be a nightmare for people. 

So the past year had been in the shitter, so what? He was out of prison, he weren’t bound to no sith, he was back on his feet. He’d run a new scam, fund a new ship, get a new crew-

_-find a good mechanic-_

He snarled as he slapped open the door and stomped inside, the interior of the bar dark and smoky. He could see it was relatively busy, with all the grav-pool tables in use at the back of the room and all the screens taken up with footage of some kind of raucous party. Weren’t so busy that he couldn’t get himself a spot at the bar, sliding onto the stool and doing his best to tune out the shrill longing in his head. 

He nodded to the bartender, who did a double take when they saw him before breaking out into a grin. “Well, if it isn’t-”

“Not in a talking mood,” he said quickly, mostly because he couldn’t remember for the life of him what the guy’s name was. He’d been here often enough that not remembering was enough to get him stiffed for drinks, and that was the last thing he needed right now. “Whiskey, neat. Whyren’s Reserve, if you’ve got it.” 

“Fancy drink, cap,” the bartender said, reaching under the bar. “What’s the occasion?” 

“I have a pressing need to get shitfaced in silence,” Andronikos said, hoping he’d take the hint and leave him alone. The bartender slid the glass along the bar and he caught it gratefully, picking it up and letting the amber liquid roll around for a moment before he took his first taste. 

“Figured you’d be celebrating Izzy’s win.”

He squinted at him over the top of the glass. “What the fuck are you on about?”

“ _Nikki!_ ” A blonde blur came surging over his shoulder, enveloping him in a warm hug that would’ve crushed the life out of a lesser man. As it was, he still choked from the impact, nearly headbutting the bar as the hug threw him forward. “Nikki Revel, I can’t believe it!” 

His brain was going a mile a minute- _was she an ex? An old con? A bounty hunter?_ \- as he tried to extricate himself enough from her grip to get a look at her. Taking in the tumble of brassy blonde hair- with a few distinct silvers in the mix- and the mischievous blue eyes in a weather worn face, he couldn’t help but feel himself breaking out into a grin despite his bad mood. “Bobbi Voresh,” he said, reaching up to pat her awkwardly in an attempt to return the hug at the bad angle she had him pinned in. “What the hell are you doing in a swanky establishment like this? Ain’t this a little higher class than the joints you usually run in?”

“Shut your damn dirty mouth, you asshole pirate,” she said, punching him cheerfully on the arm before slithering seamlessly onto the barstool beside him. She snatched the tumbler out of his hand with ease, throwing it back in one go.

“Hey!”

She smacked her lips comically. “Ooh, we’re drinking the fancy stuff,” she said approvingly. “What are we celebrating? Is it Izzy?” 

He glanced at the bartender and gestured for another drink with not a little resignation. “You’re the second person to say that,” he said, passing over his credit chip to be scanned again. “Who the hell are you talking about?” 

“Izzy? Izzy Pierce? Ysaine, the big girl who used to work down at Elsie’s?”

The explanation finally dredged up a memory of a warm brown face, and a goofily shy smile. “She used to run with mandos, didn’t she?” 

Bobbi barked out a laugh. “You could say that- she just won the Great Hunt. Look,” she said, gesturing to the screen above the bar. Sure enough, the footage was showing your typical mando celebration, complete with a few bloodied noses amongst the crowd and the occasional flash of light from a blaster going off. He couldn’t hear the reporter over the combined noise of the party and the bar he was sitting in, but the footage cut to stills of Izzy herself, clearly taken at various points during the last year while the Hunt had been running. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Good for her.”

She nudged him in the ribs. “So,” she said conversationally, “if you ain’t drinking for her, what’s the occasion?”

“Why does everyone around here need me to give a twelve point proposal for why I want to get blind drunk?” 

“You ain’t gettin’ blind drunk, Revel, or you’d be buying cheap ass piss in bulk. You’re sitting hunched at the bar with a drink so expensive you could buy a small freighter with the cost of a bottle. You’re sulking.” 

“Fuck off, Voresh.”

Her expression went deadly solemn. “Oh no,” she said, with exaggerated gravitas, “it’s _serious_.”

He very pointedly hugged his drink closer to him this time, growling at her when she tried to reach for it again. “What’s _serious_ is how _seriously_ you’re pissing me off, Voresh,” he said. 

“Come on, you rat bastard, last I heard you were running around Tatooine trying to kill people with your teeth, and the last thing I heard before _that_ was that you were in prison, and something about a mutiny? What gives, what’s the truth? Who’d you piss off to land the indomitable Andronikos Revel in prison?”

He tried to sip at the whiskey, but then grimaced; she was right, he wasn’t in the mood. He threw it back in one go and then gestured for the bartender to bring them the bottle.

“Ouch, Revel, you sure you don’t want me to pick up the tab? I’ve just been treasure hunting, you know, pirates and princesses and the like.” She quite visibly preened. “Just Nok Drayen’s treasure, no big deal.”

He glanced sideways at her, the look incredulous. “Yeah, and I’m a wampa’s uncle.” 

She tossed her credit chip to the bartender, who caught it one handed and passed her the bottle instead. “True story, Nikki, I’m a reformed woman. Now that I’m rich, I’m going to live the life to which I’d like to become accustomed.” 

“Bullshit you are.”

“Oh my god, thank god you called me out on that, it was so hard keeping a straight face.” She pulled the cap off the bottle with her teeth and spat it onto the floor, taking a swig straight from the mouth. She crowed loudly as she set it back down, wiping her arm across her own mouth. “Oh, that’s the _good_ stuff! Burns real nice.”

He reached over and tried to snare the bottle from her, but she kept it tantalizingly out of reach. 

“Uh uh, mama don’t play nice until you tell her what’s wrong.” She very pointedly took another long pull on the bottle, holding a hand up in his face when he tried to reach around her to grab it. Eventually she spluttered with laughter, snorting a good measure of one of the most expensive drinks available onto the surface of the bar. “Damn it, you fucking child, don’t waste my booze.”

“I was here first, and I ordered it-”

“Tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll share.”

He sat back with a snort of disgust. “Can a man not just sit and stew in his own bad mood without people trying to fucking make all kinds of demands on him about his inner thoughts and shit?”

She took a sharp intake of breath. “ _Ooh_ ,” she crooned, the sound trailing on for several syllables as her face broke out into a massive grin, “Andronikos Revel, you sly dog, you’ve gone and fallen in _love_.”

_Shit_. “What?” he snapped, feeling his face heat almost instantly. “You’re going senile, Voresh, you’re losing it in your old age.”

“Come on, you can tell ol’ Bobbi,” she said conspiratorially, leaning in close. “Come on, spill, who are they? Boy? Girl? Other? Neither? Human? Alien? Robot?”

“Fucking stars, woman, take a breath!” 

“Is it embarrassing? A jawa? An ortolan?” She adopted a very serious expression. “I’ll have you know that I’m an authority on all things to do with love and commitment-”

“Bullshit, you can’t say ‘ _good morning_ ’ without lying twice.”

She put on an affronted look, holding a hand to her chest in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know I am very happily married-”

“Your damn ship don’t count.”

“Um, one, how dare you belittle the most important relationship in my life, and two, I wasn’t talking about The Wife.” She turned and gestured over her shoulder, and an eight foot shadow detached itself from the far wall and crossed the floor of the bar in two short strides; Andronikos squinted as he looked up- _way_ up- into the face of a wookiee. Bobbi beamed. “This is Bowdaar. We’re married.”

His shyriiwook was a little rusty, so he didn’t catch what the giant walking rug said in a guttural growl as it put its giant paw on Bobbi’s shoulder. 

Thankfully, Bobbi spluttered in outrage. “It _totally_ counts,” she said, poking it in the chest. “Tax dodges are the _only_ reason to get married. Why else would people suffer through it?” 

She’d loosened her grip on the bottle, so he nabbed it before she could stop him. It burned when he skulled it, just like she promised, but it was a good burn. 

Bowdaar growled something softly, only barely audible over the noise in the bar. 

“I am _not_ wasting good booze, you overgrown ewok,” Bobbi said crossly. “Have you been talking to Corso again?”

“Totally got this whole marriage thing worked out just right, don’t you Voresh?” he drawled, hugging the bottle out of reach of her when she tried to steal it back. 

“Come on, Nikki,” she said, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “What’s gone and got you all a-tither?”

“A-tither?”

“Bereft? Forlorn? Yearning? Languishing-”

He couldn’t help it- he laughed. “Fuck, woman, did you eat a thesaurus or something?” 

“ _Nikki_ ,” she drawled, dragging his name out for a few seconds. “Come on. What’s got your panties in a twist?” 

He stabbed a finger into her face. “You weren’t supposed to tell no one about that night,” he said.

“I kept the pictures, a girl has needs.” She kissed him noisily on the temple. “What’s up, Revel? Come on. Don’t make me beg.”

Andronikos laughed again, a little more shakily this time as he felt himself weakening under her constant barrage. “It’s, uh...” He couldn’t not laugh at it. “It’s complicated.” 

“Always is, sweetpea.” 

He sighed, running a hand over his head. “ _Sith_ sort of complicated.”

She winced so severely that he heard her lips squeak, and he couldn’t not laugh at that. “You don’t make ‘em easy, do you Nikki?” When his only answer was to take another drink of the whiskey, she clucked her tongue at him. “You love ‘em?”

“Her.”

“You love her?”

He stared down at his hands on the bar, the bottle held between them. He thought about her fingers laced through his in the snow. He thought about the way she’d trembled under his palms when he’d taken her to bed. He thought about the blood he’d found on his fingers that he couldn’t rationalize as belonging to anyone but her. “Yeah,” he said quietly, and stars it hurt to say it. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Bobbi nudged him gently. “Then what the fuck are you doing getting blind in a seedy bar by yourself, love?” 

He snorted unenthusiastically. “It’s complicated, remember?”

“Not really. Don’t really see what the problem is, here.”

“Oh, for-” He bit his tongue, waiting until the insult subsided. “She’s a _sith_ , Bobbi.”

“So what? You’re a pirate. Seems like a great match to me.” She carefully extracted the bottle from his grip and took another swig; for a bottle that could allegedly cost as much as a small freighter, like she’d claimed, they’d gone through a good two thirds of it in the space of twenty minutes. “Look, Nikki, I don’t get the whole... grand proclamations of love and shit that people dig, but it seems to me that if you’re sitting alone in a bar sulking into a criminally expensive bottle of piss, then it’s a bit more important than a passing fling.”

“It’s complicated,” he ground out from between gritted teeth.

“So, fucking un-complicate it, stars above.” He could just about hear her rolling her eyes. “Ain’t that difficult.” 

“You are insufferable.”

“Hey, I ain’t the one sitting moping in a bar by myself, all single and shit.”

“Wookiees don’t count.”

“That’s my rule as well,” Bobbi said with an exaggerated sly wink. “Gets me out of trouble all the time.” Bowdaar growled softly and ruffled her hair, and she leaned back to beam at him. She turned back to Andronikos with an overwrought sigh. “Nikki, Nikki, Nikki,” she said mournfully. “Look. I’ve known you for- what, six years now? Seven?”

“Seven, I think,” he said grudgingly. “Bothawui, from memory.” 

“That’s right,” she said, slapping him on the thigh rather forcefully. “Never did find out if the ban extended to the whole planet, or if it was just Drev’starn.”

“Thought it was the whole Bothan Sector,” he said.

“Point is,” she continued, “in the seven years I’ve known you, I ain’t ever seen you like this. And don’t try and give me any shit about it being _complicated_ , or about her being a sith or something- you’re Andronikos fucking Revel, and you don’t run from a fight. So come on Nikki, do you love her or not?” 

Fuck everything, he really did. So much that it fucking terrified him, but Bobbi was right- he was Andronikos fucking Revel, and he didn’t run from a fight. 

He emptied the bottle, putting a hand in Bobbi’s face as she squawked in outrage and tried to snatch it away from him; smacking his lips loudly, he set it back on the bar, now empty but for the few persistent drops in the bottom. “Right,” he said, half shouting as he stood up and turned to face the bar, “I’ve gotta find a cult. Anyone want a help a man out?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake Nikki,” Bobbi said beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The magnificent Bobbi Voresh belongs to my very dear Miri (Miri1984 here on AO3) and she is the glue that binds all universes together. I've missed her this past week while she recovers from major surgery, so this chapter is a gift to her.


	13. Chapter 13

“The Cult of the Screaming Blade,” he muttered to himself as he eyed the entrance to their grand headquarters. “Why am I not fucking surprised in the slightest.” 

He wasn’t drunk. Well, he wasn’t shitfaced. Okay, he wasn’t really sober either. Honestly, who was even keeping track? Fucking squares, that’s who kept track. He blinked in confusion, staring up at the ostentatious edifice on the front of the warehouse, before gritting his teeth and shaking his head violently. Okay, so he wasn’t really as sober as he probably should have been, but that didn’t matter. He was here now. 

Bejah was somewhere in that building and he was gonna find her and tell her that he didn’t care that she was a sith and that he wanted to stay. 

He reached for the door, and he heard the very pointed click of the electronic locks being set. Rolling his eyes, he leaned against the wall and squinted upwards, finding the security camera positioned in the corner a moment later. Of course. 

His hands were already clenched into fists, so he didn’t have to think too hard about it before he smashed his knuckles against the solid metal door. “Let me in, Kallathe!” he roared, not sure if the door was soundproof or not, but too annoyed and a little too drunk to work it out. He knocked again when nothing happened. “I know you can hear me, ya sadistic asshole-”

There was a brief burst of electronic static next to his head and he jerked backwards, startled; in the wall was a tiny metal grill that he had mistaken for an air vent, but realised now in his drunken state had completely overlooked the fact that it was a speaker. While he was staring at it, blearily trying to work out where the button was to talk, he heard a very pointed sigh on the other end of the comm. 

“Captain Revel,” Kallathe said, in her velvet and whiskey voice. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t make a scene on my property.”

He made a rude gesture up at the security camera. “Let me in, no scene to be made.”

“I think not. I believe I was quite clear on my expectations for you, and yet here you are, defying me in your ignorance.”

Andronikos laughed, leaning one arm against the speaker. “I ain’t defying you outta ignorance, sweetheart,” he growled, “it’s deliberate.”

He could just about hear the way she sucked in a breath angrily past those sharp teeth of hers. “Are you in possession of a death wish, captain, or merely stupid?”

“Heh, maybe I’m just a special kind of stupid.”

His only answer was silence, and he rested his head against the wall, trying to decide whether or not it was worth banging to get her attention again, or whether he could try to find his way in from some other direction. How fancy could their security be, after all? Just when he was busy trying to work out how he was gonna climb the roof, there was another loud click from the electronic locks. He lurched upright, his hands immediately going to his crumpled shirt beneath his jacket as if he needed to- what? Fix it? It weren’t gonna be Bejah opening the door, kriff, he didn’t need to look fancy for no one. 

The doors swung inwards, and as he blinked in the light, he made out the familiar silhouette of Kallathe in one of her more garish outfits. Girl was gonna take an eye out with some of those spikes, fuck. 

Despite the fact that she was shorter than him, she still managed to look down her nose at him; that was a talent, that was. Make a man feel like he was two inches high without saying a word. She breathed in slowly, her nostrils flaring angrily. “You look revolting,” she said dismissively. 

“Thanks. Good to see you too, sweetheart.”

“You smell worse.”

He made a double guns gesture towards her. “Y’really know how to make a man feel great, you know that?”

“I have no interest in _men_ , and especially not in making them feel _great_.” She said it like it was the most disgusting thing that had ever passed her lips, and he couldn’t help but laugh at the way she made it sound- all pearl-clutching horror at the scandal of it all, heh. “I’m glad my discomfort is so amusing to you.”

“Warms the cockles of my heart, it does,” he drawled, going to move past her and into the warehouse. She snapped out a hand and immediately blocked his entry, the tips of her clawed fingers pressing ever so lightly against his chest; he rolled his eyes, rightly fed up with her melodramatic bullshit. “I’m coming inside whether you like it or not, Kal.”

Probably the wrong thing to say, in hindsight, but his self preservation skills were shit when he was sober. 

The only warning he had was the gold flare to her eyes, and then he grunted as the claws dug into his shirt, scraping the skin beneath. She twisted, and in a surprising show of strength, she physically lifted him off the ground and hurled him into the room behind her, sending him crashing into a set of chairs and knocking the wind from him. He heard screams, and people scrabbling to get back, and from his dazed position on the floor he saw her patiently close the door and lock it before turning and stalking towards him. 

He went to move, to jump back to his feet to defend himself against her, but she’d preempted that apparently; his limbs wouldn’t respond to his movements, and as her hand snapped out towards him in a clawing gesture, he choked at the sensation of a hand of steel around his throat. He was violently dragged upright, until his feet were only barely touching the ground, his toes scrabbling to maintain the contact. There were spots winking in front of his eyes as he gasped for breath, and a headache had exploded to life in his skull at the pressure. 

“ _Get out_ ,” she snarled aggressively, and it took him a moment to realise she didn’t mean him. There was movement out of the corner of his eye, and he heard the scrabbling, panicked footsteps of the smarter occupants of the room running for the lives away from the homicidal sith lady.

Damn it, he never was a smart man. 

The moment the thought had passed through his head, the pressure on his throat eased; he went crashing back to the ground, landing uncomfortably on the debris of one of the chairs he’d crushed in his first fall. Wheezing and coughing, aching in a dozen different places, he managed to fumble his way back onto his knees, panting as he stared up at her. 

Her expression was inscrutable, her eyes glittering with irritation. He couldn’t tell what the fuck she was thinking. 

Trying to catch his breath, he said “That the best you got?”

Her eyes narrowed marginally. “I told you I would kill you if you returned,” she said quietly, but no less terrifying for the fact that she didn’t shout it. 

“You can kill me all you like,” he said, some distant part of his brain wincing at how slurred his voice was. “Ain’t gonna change the fact that I love her. Y’kill me and I’ll still love her!”

Kallathe paused- he would’ve said hesitated, but hesitation didn’t seem to be something she was capable of. She was too calculating for that, always thinking and shit. Crafty sith witch. “You don’t mean that,” she said, her tone flat. 

“Mean what? The killing? That’s up to you, not me.”

“ _Love_ ,” she snapped. “You don’t _love_ her.”

“Do too,” he said petulantly. 

“Love is a platitude that the simple-minded cling to in order to rationalize their more primal instincts,” she said dismissively. 

“Just cause no one will ever love _you_ ,” he spat.

She slapped him; his head jerked to the side, a splatter of blood flying across the floor as the jagged rings on her hand broke the skin. “Your lack of sobriety does not give you leave to insult me, captain,” she said icily. 

Panting, his cheek stinging something fierce, he turned back to her with a sneer. “I ain’t insulting you, I’m just telling the truth,” he said. 

Kallathe breathed in slowly through her nose, nostrils flaring with unspoken anger. “I believe I made myself abundantly clear, Captain Revel,” she said. “I told you to leave our company, and yet I find myself besieged by your inanities yet again.” 

“Y’already told me you were gonna kill me,” he said. “Ain’t much else past that I care about. And if I’m gonna die, I’m at least gonna say goodbye to her first.”

Her look was a mix of disgusted and incredulous. “You would risk your _life_ , just to speak to her?”

He stuck his chin out stubbornly. “I don’t back down from a fight, _Kal_.” 

She stared at him for a long moment, and then let out the most frustrated groan he’d ever heard in his life. “You _can’t_ be serious, you besotted _fool_.”

Oh, he’d give her serious alright. “ _I love her_ ,” he said, spitting each word out defiantly. “So, you know, kill me or whatever-”

“I’m not going to _kill_ you, you ridiculous man,” she snapped. “Although I am tempted to cut out your tongue if it will shut you up.” 

He glared up at her mutinously, rubbing a hand absently over the faint sting on his chest where her claws had dug in. “So what now?” he growled, his head aching and his throat burning. “Y’all gonna let me see her, or what?” 

Kallathe looked down her nose disdainfully at him. “Clean yourself up first, and I’ll consider it.” 

____ 

He couldn’t say he’d ever wanted to shower while being watched by a ten foot tall statue of Kallathe posed like a benevolent executioner, but he figured he’d pushed his luck far enough today. He weren’t gonna throw a hissy fit about their bathing facilities when the source of his unease was also the only reason he was allowed to stay; but, still. He kept his back turned to the grandiose monument, trying not to feel like it had eyes burning into him from behind. Her face was goddamn everywhere in here- on posters and banners, in sculptures like the monstrosity in the communal bathing area. He hadn’t really thought it through in great detail when they’d called this place a cult, but he should have guessed it would be over the top. 

It _was_ Kallathe, after all. 

Someone had brought his gear over from the Fury, another little thing that made him sick to his stomach with guilt; he figured it had to be Casey, most likely, but the fact that someone had taken the time to collect his things as if anticipating him coming back. He was a goddamn coward, and he didn’t deserve their consideration. His head was aching as he pulled on a clean set of clothes, either from being choked for the third time today or from throwing back a few too many drinks with Bobbi back at the bar, but he didn’t wanna push his luck by going scrounging around for pain-killers. Plus, he sort of deserved this one. 

It weren’t even a fraction so bad as what Bejah had to be going through. 

She was sleeping when he finally worked up the courage to stick his head in the door to the med quarters- or unconscious, maybe, he didn’t know the difference. She weren’t awake, that was all that mattered; whether it was natural sleep or she was drugged to the eyeballs or passed out from the pain...

The last one made him grit his teeth in frustration, his heart thumping almost painfully against his ribs. He didn’t want her to be in pain. 

Her left arm was bound against her chest in some sort of sling or brace or something, presumably to keep her from moving it too extensively while the wounds on her throat and shoulder were healing. There were strips of dermal regenerative placed along the curve of her neck, the stark white of the medicinal fabric looking almost unnatural against her dark skin. 

He came to a stop beside the bed, almost in a trance; he wanted to touch her, to reach out and feel the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips to convince himself she was still alive. He wanted to shake her gently awake and babble all of these stupid, overwhelming _feelings_ at her until she smiled at him and laughed and told him not to worry so much. He wanted her to know he wasn’t mad, that he understood why she hadn’t told him, and that he didn’t care. He wanted to tell her not to ever be so goddamn stupid ever again, all but throwing her life away over some jackass sith who weren’t gonna think twice about tearing out her throat. 

He needed to tell her he was sorry, even if she couldn’t accept his apology.

He needed to tell her he loved her. 

But she was asleep, or unconscious, or whatever, so he dragged up a seat from by the door and settled in beside her bed. At first he just sat and watched her, taking comfort in the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, relieved to hear the faint whispering snores she let out. Even her snoring was adorable, what the kriff was with that? Literally everything she did just made him more smitten with her, even when he was sitting there silently begging her not to die on him. 

She was gonna be fine, of course, Rix had said as much and he trusted her opinion on the matter- but Lady Luck could have a hell of a pique sometimes, and the way his luck had been going this last year, it wouldn’t be at all out of character for her to spit on his face further. 

Her right hand was lying flat on top of the blankets as she slept, and at some point he found himself hesitantly stroking the back of her hand, which evolved into him putting his hand over the top of hers, and ended with him giving up all pretense of not being ferociously needy for the contact and picking her hand up, threading their fingers together as he clasped it between both of his. Her skin was warm, and soft- she had callouses on her fingers from her time in the factories on Raxus Prime, and a dozen scars at least, but none of that mattered right now. Right now she was alive, and he could stand to make a better go at this mess. 

He kissed her knuckles, closing his eyes and just stopping to take in the smell of her. “I reckon there’s a lot we’ve gotta talk about when you’re up again, you and I,” he murmured softly, keeping her hand clasped between his. “And I ain’t just meaning all this shit to clear the air about you being sith and all, even if that’s important.”

She didn’t answer, still fast asleep, but he found it helped ease his jittery nerves a little to speak it aloud. 

“I realise I probably talked over you a lot, these past few months,” he said, “and you were right to get your dander up at me those few times you did, I earned it. I gotta get better at listening, and not enjoying the sound of my own voice so much in conversation.” 

Fuck, but he missed her. It had only been a few hours, how could it hurt so much in such a short space of time? All he wanted right now was for her to wake up and smile at him. There weren’t nothing in the galaxy he wanted more than that- not his favourite blasters back, not his Sky Princess, not a satisfying revenge against the mutinous bastards back on Tatooine. Just her smile, and the knowledge that she was okay. 

He took a shaky breath. “But I just- I want to talk about a lot of shit with you. Dumb stuff, like- fuck, I don’t know, I wanna know the stories your mama used to tell you. I wanna take you to a candy store and let you go crazy until the sugar makes you throw up. I just want you to be okay, and I want you to be happy.”

He couldn’t quite tell how he knew, because he still had his eyes closed, but it occurred to him rather abruptly that Bejah was awake. She hadn’t moved, her breathing hadn’t changed, and her hand hadn’t twitched in his at all to indicate she’d woken up, but he knew. When he opened his eyes, he found her staring at him, her beautiful dark eyes as wide as dinner plates. 

Andronikos licked his lips, suddenly finding his mouth quite dry. “Hey, Sparky,” he said quietly, squeezing her hand gently in his. 

Even in the gloom of the room, he could see her lip trembling. “Nikos,” she whispered. 

“You okay, sweetheart? You need me to get you anything for the pain?” 

“You came _back_ ,” she said, her voice cracking as the first few tears fell from her lashes. 

Aw, hell. “Course I did,” he said, kissing the back of her hand. “Ain’t nothing can keep Andronikos Revel away.”

She whimpered softly, as if she was fighting back a storm of weeping. “Kallathe said- she said you went to lay a false trail for us, to- to let us escape, but-” Her face scrunched up as she lost the battle against the tears. “I knew. She’s an- an awful liar.”

Kallathe hadn’t told her that he’d fled like a coward? The snarling sith witch had actually tried to _help_ him? Or, more likely, she’d tried to spare Bejah’s feelings and hadn’t thought about him in the slightest, but still. It was interesting to consider. 

Not so interesting that it could distract him from Bejah’s tears, however. He couldn’t look at her like this- it was breaking his fucking heart, and he hadn’t even known he still had one. “Please don’t cry,” he said gruffly, voice soft. 

Bejah hiccuped loudly as she tried to bite her lip and hold in the whimpers. “But I- I hurt you,” she stuttered, her face half turned into the pillow to hide her tears. 

“Nah, I’m a pirate, pirates don’t have feelings to get hurt.” That roused a watery half giggle from her, and he smiled a little in response. “I’m a big boy, Sparky,” he said, as she snuffled and whimpered again. “Ain’t nothing I can’t get over.” 

She opened her eyes and stared at him, her gaze miserable. Kriff, but her eyes were still so beautiful, even when she was crying. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” she whispered, and he could feel her retreating from him, withdrawing into herself, and he weren’t having none of it.

“Didn’t mean for it to be like what?” he asked. “For me to go and get myself all crazy over you?” 

“For- for it to be all twisted up and complicated like this,” she said. “I never tell anyone, and I didn’t think it would matter that I hadn’t told you, but then it _did_ matter, and then it was too late to say anything without it seeming like I’d used you-”

“There’s an easy fix for that, Sparky,” he said. “Were you using me?”

The violent tremble of her lip was enough that he found himself lurching forward in the chair almost instinctively, reaching up to smooth back her hair. “Hey, come on now,” he said quietly, “that ain’t anything worth getting worked up over.”

“I would _never_ hurt you,” she whispered, more tears spilling from her lashes. 

He couldn’t _not_ believe her, even if his common sense railed at him for it; Bejah wore her fucking heart on her sleeve more than anyone he’d ever known in his life, and if he was honest with himself, it was amazing how long she’d kept up the facade in the first place. She couldn’t tell a lie to save her life. “You did though, sweetheart,” he said, “and I can’t tell you how hard that is for me to admit to.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know if I can tell you how sorry I am, and I know it’ll never be enough.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, smoothing her hair back slowly, his thumb stroking gently over her skin. “Were you really that scared of what I’d say?”

She bit her lip and looked away, not fast enough that he didn’t catch the self loathing in her eyes. “I know what people think about sith, Nikos,” she whispered. “I know what _you_ think about sith-”

“Yeah, but you’re _you_ first and a sith second.” 

“I've _killed_ people, Nikos,” she said, turning back towards him with the most bleak despair in her face that it knocked the wind out of him for a moment. “And not just once, like that sith in the spaceport. I’ve killed _over_ and _over_ and _over_ again, because I didn’t want to die and I was too cowardly to challenge the people who insisted I use violence.”

“Killing don’t make you a bad person, sweetheart,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand and leaning forward until he could rest his forehead against hers. “ _Hurting_ people makes you a bad person, and enjoying it at that.”

“Nikos,” she whispered, her voice cracking again like she was about to start bawling.

“And even if you are a bad person, so what? By whose authority are we judging folk? Ain’t no High Moral Council out here determining who gets to be called good and who gets to be called bad.” He ran his thumb over her cheek, brushing away the tears there as she stared at him forlornly. “And if you’re bad, so what? I’m bad. We can be bad together.” 

He thought that might’ve gotten a laugh out of her, so he felt his heart lurch in alarm when her face scrunched up and she started weeping proper. “Hey, hey come on now baby,” he said, cradling her face in his hands. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” 

It took her a long couple of seconds to stutter out an answer, and when it came it broke his heart. “You- you said that bad people hurt people,” she stammered, hiccuping over her tears. “And- and I hurt _you_ -”

Aw, kriff. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said, coming to his feet, “move over a little.”

That threw her a little, if the way her tears stuttered to a halt for a moment was anything to go by. “What?”

“Can you move up a little? I’m gonna hold you.” 

She looked so vulnerable and so miserable, like she was expecting it all to be a grand trick, and he just wanted to kiss those tears away until she smiled again. “Okay,” she said finally. 

It took some maneuvering to get them both settled on the narrow med bed, and about halfway through he realised he probably should’ve kicked his boots off first. Trying not to jostle her injuries meant he had to be a lot more flexible around her, and he winced at some of the aches and pains he’d accrued throughout the day. Hard to believe how much had happened in a single standard rotation period. 

But then he was settled in the bed with her, his arm slung low over her hip so as not to knock her bound arm, and her face tucked close against his chest. She was still shivering a little, shuddering over little whimpers as she tried to rein in her tears, and he kissed the top of her head, murmuring quiet little nothings to her while he held her. 

“I’m so sorry, Nikos,” she whispered.

“Ain’t nothing to be sorry for, Sparky,” he said. “I’m sorry for being an ass about it all.” 

“But I-” 

“No buts, sweetheart.” He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “I forgive you, okay? I ain’t mad, I don’t want you beating yourself up over it on my account.”

She was quiet for a long moment, so much so that he was beginning to wonder whether she’d fallen asleep again or passed out from the pain. But then she shifted slightly, her face hidden in the curve of his throat and her breath warm against his skin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, so quietly that it was more that he felt the words than heard them. 

He sighed. “I forgive you, sweetheart, it’s okay.” He hesitated, the courage that had fuelled his steps from the bar fizzling away to a tiny flicker. “I love you, Bejah.” 

She went almost painfully still in his arms, all but rigid, and he smoothed his hand down the small of her back. He tried not to take her reaction as a reason to panic, but he hadn’t really ever tried to do this before. 

“Bejah?”

He felt her fingers toying with the collar of his shirt. “But I- hurt you,” she started, but he shook his head. 

“Sometimes we fuck up, and we hurt the people we love. Just means we gotta be better at talking before it gets to a point where it’ll hurt someone.” 

She let out a shaky breath. “You love me?” 

“Yeah,” he said, and it was suddenly a lot easier to say it now that he’d said it once. “Yeah, sweetheart. I love you.” 

She lifted her head, her eyes only just reflecting the light in the dim light of the room. “Me?” she whispered. 

He couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sheer disbelief in her voice, the desperate sense of hope radiating off of her. “Don’t see anyone else here with us, Sparky,” he said, brushing his nose against hers. “So yep, I think that means I’m talking about you.” 

He felt her fingers against his lips. “Say it again,” she said, her voice trembling. 

He really honestly tried not to smile like a smug bastard at the effect he was having on her, but a man had his limits, and really- his ego was swelling up fit to burst. “Bejah,” he said, very pointedly kissing her fingertips and closing his lips over them briefly until she shivered, “I love you.” 

“Really?”

Andronikos laughed softly, close enough now that his words were brushed across her lips as a kiss. “You really gonna make me keep saying it, sweetheart?”

He felt her shiver, and her mouth moved against his in the tentative beginnings of a kiss. “Would you keep saying it, if I asked?” she whispered. 

His answer was to kiss her soundly, delighting in the way she melted against him- right up until she tensed, a gasp of pain escaping from her lips. He pulled back instantly, panic surging in him. “Sweetheart?” 

“It’s fine,” she said, but her voice was thin with pain. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

She went to kiss him again, but he pulled back, despite the crushing disappointment it roused in him. “Sweetheart,” he said, “come on. You’re hurt.”

Bejah let out a sound that seemed like a bit of a frustrated sob. “I don’t want to- I _love_ you, Nikos,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

Hearing her say it back to him was probably the best damn thing he’d ever heard in his life, enough that it made him giddy from it. Three little words shouldn’t have had such a big impact on him, but if he could’ve danced around the room in that moment he would’ve. 

Bejah loved him. 

He brushed her hair back from her eyes again, gentle as he could manage. “You ain’t gonna lose me, Sparky,” he said quietly. “I’m sticking around this time.” 

Her lip trembled. “Even though I’m a sith?”

“Even though you’re a sith. That ain’t make a lick of difference to me, sweetheart.” 

She took a shuddering breath. “I love you,” she whispered.

He leaned in, and pressed his nose against hers. “Really?” he teased.


	14. Chapter 14

It was dark in the room when he stirred, blinking groggily as he tried to make sense of where he was. He couldn’t remember turning the light off, and there was a blanket tossed over them, so someone had clearly come in after they’d fallen asleep to check on them. Someone who cared enough to take care of them, at that. His first instinct was to suspect Casey, but he hadn’t seen her at all when he’d arrived at the warehouse, and he had a sneaking suspicion in his gut that Kallathe’s secretive concern for Bejah’s welfare had grudgingly been extended to him as well. Whether that meant she’d sent a minion in to check on them, or whether she’d done it herself, he couldn’t say. 

The thought of Kallathe having a care for anyone but herself was absolutely mind-boggling, and he didn’t really want to dwell on it for long. But honestly, why was he so surprised about her having a soft spot for Bejah? His girl was like pure spun sugar, and she got into the blood of whoever she came into contact with. 

_His girl_. Heh. He liked the sound of that. 

He stretched a little in the bed, trying to shake his foot a little to get the circulation going again, and trying not to wake Bejah at all. Rather abruptly, he became aware of two things- one, that he’d woken up harder than a Hutt’s heart, and two... that Bejah was already awake, if the way her shallow breathing against his neck was anything to go by. 

They were entwined together rather closely, despite him trying to keep distance from her injuries earlier, and he winced a little in the darkness. Licking dry lips, he pressed a kiss against her hair. “Y’alright, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice little more than a rasp. He grimaced and swallowed, his throat feeling raw. “You need something for the pain?”

She shifted, the movement pressing her more intimately against him in a way that made it abundantly clear she’d noticed his arousal, probably even before he’d woken up. She weren’t breathing like that because of the _pain_ , she was doing it because she was turned on. He sucked in a breath sharply when she nuzzled at his neck. 

_Fuck_. “Hold up now, sweetheart, that ain’t nothing to get too worked up about,” he said, even as his brain tried not to short circuit, “that’s just something dicks like to do when you sleep-”

“Doesn’t it mean that you want me?” she whispered, her devious little tongue hot against his skin. 

He closed his eyes and tried to count backwards from ten. “I want you so bad I can’t think straight, Sparky, but that ain’t the point-”

“Good,” she said, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his throat. 

It sent a searing bolt of heat through him, hungry and wild, and he groaned. “Sweetheart, I ain’t gonna do this while you’re hurt,” he rasped, which his dick thought was the stupidest response he could have ever given. “Trust me, the moment you’ve got the all clear, I’m gonna lock you in a room and have my way with you for at least a week until neither of us can move, but right now? It ain’t gonna happen.”

He felt her hesitate under his chin. “I could- I could use my mouth,” she whispered. “Like you did with me. I wouldn’t have to move much for that, would I?” 

Fucking kriffin’ stars above and below, she was gonna fucking kill him. 

He closed his eyes tight and wished desperately for strength. “We’ll save that for a time when we can both enjoy ourselves, Sparky,” he said, his treacherous voice cracking slightly on the words. “That’s a goddamn promise.”

She huffed out a petulant sigh, and he could feel her trembling in his arms. “I want to make you feel good, though.”

“You do, sweetheart, you really do, but right now you’re hurt and I want you to get better more than anything else.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “And you ain’t gonna get better if you’re getting all hot and flustered and the like with me.”

“But-”

Clearly trying to play up the sympathetic card and being gentle weren’t getting them anywhere, so he tried a different tactic instead. She had a temper when she got prodded enough, so she weren’t completely a wilting flower. He put a finger to her lips, cutting her off mid sentence. “I said _no_ , Sparky,” he growled, feeling her shiver almost immediately in response. “Don’t you go testing my patience, now.”

“I want to test it,” she whispered.

“You insatiable little minx, you’re gonna be the death of me.” He grunted in surprise when she slid her unbound hand between them and stroked his dick through his pants. “Look, you, I’m gonna have to tie you up if you don’t keep your hands to yourself.” At her sharp intake of breath, he sighed in resignation. “You liked the sound of that, didn’t you?”

“I- maybe? Is that normal? Do people do that?”

“Kriffin’ stars.” He awkwardly readjusted himself, shuffling his hips backwards so he wasn’t within such easy reach for her greedy little hand. “Yes, okay, it’s a thing people can do when they fuck, and no, we ain’t doing it now, because like I said, we ain’t having sex while you’re hurt.” 

Something finally seemed to get through to her, because her hand didn’t chase after him, and she seemed to deflate slightly against his chest. “You’re no fun,” she muttered quietly.

He allowed himself a silent sigh of relief that she’d calmed down, or at least accepted his disapproval for the time being. His dick hated him, though. “I can be heaps of fun,” he said. “Just right now, the kinda fun you’re looking for ain’t gonna happen.”

She nuzzled at the bottom of his low slung collar, where the scant sprinkling of chest hair poked out. “I just want to make you feel good,” she said, something tremulous in her voice. “I want to make up for what I did.”

Kriff- why was it so easy for her to break his heart all over again with such innocent little statements? “You don’t have to go giving me things, or offering to fuck just to get back in my good books,” he said, smoothing back her hair. The spring of the curls under his fingers was bizarrely comforting, the faint scent of the oils she used on her hair lingering enough to imbue a hint of sugary sweetness when he inhaled. 

An idea came to him, mischievous and wicked, and the thought alone was enough to make his dick perk up again. He must’ve tensed, because Bejah nuzzled at his throat almost curiously. 

“Nikos?” she whispered.

He shifted, trying to extricate himself from where they’d wound themselves together in sleep without jostling her, until he had her flat on her back in the bed while he propped himself up on one elbow beside her. He could feel the curiosity radiating off of her, and a flicker of uncertain fear, as if she were expecting him to launch out of the bed and take off. 

He’d put that fear to rest soon enough. 

“We’re gonna play a game, Sparky,” he growled softly, and he heard her breathing hitch in the darkness. He grinned slyly. “Do you wanna play a game with me?” 

“I- yes?”

He leaned over her, delighting in the way she sucked in a breath in excitement. “Here’s the rules,” he said, brushing teasing kisses ever so lightly against her mouth. “You have to stay absolutely still. You move, for any reason, and the game will stop- got it?” 

Her breathing was already coming fast and shallow, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. “Got it,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said, nuzzling at her mouth. “Now, I’m gonna ask you some questions, and as long as I like your answers, I’ll show you my appreciation. That sound alright to you?”

Her answer was a needy moan, her teeth biting into her lower lip; in the darkness of the room, he could only just make out her features, so his imagination had to fill in the finer details. The wild look he knew would be in her eyes. The adorable flush to her cheeks, and the way her pulse fluttered in her throat. Fuck, thinking of that wasn’t helping him keep his cool. 

He set his hand on her belly, his fingers toying with the hem of her shirt; she whimpered. “Question one,” he murmured. “Are you a sith?”

“Yes,” she said instantly, trembling under his hand. 

“Good answer,” he said, sliding his hand up under her shirt to the smooth skin beneath. It was enough to make her breathing stutter for a moment, and he smiled against her mouth. “Question two- what’s that trick you do where you stop other sith from having magic?”

She was breathing shallow and hot, almost panting, and he could feel how much effort it was taking for her to not just lunge for him; kriff, it was good for the ego. “I- I don’t know if it has a name,” she said. “My mother taught it to me.” 

“What for?”

She hesitated. “Is- did I not answer the question properly?”

He laughed softly. “Impatient little thing, aren’t you?” he said. He let his hand slide lower, his fingers slipping beneath the top of her pants. She whimpered excitedly, squirming beneath him. “Uh uh, no moving.”

“I’m trying,” she whispered. 

“You’ll hurt yourself if you move.”

“Maybe I won’t?”

He chuckled. “Question three, then,” he said, “why did your ma teach you how to do that trick?” 

“I don’t know for sure,” she said hoarsely. “She always said we needed to hide. That we couldn’t show our powers or They would find us.”

“Who’re they?”

She made an impatient noise. “I _answered_.”

“That you did,” he said, nudging his hand fully beneath the waistband of her pants. She let out a soft moan as he settled his hand between her legs, cupping her gently. “Next question- who’re they?” 

“I don’t know,” she shivered, and he could feel the tension in her thighs, the urge to press herself against his touch and the restraint she was showing by not doing it. “She died before she could tell me, but she was told that by her mother, who was told it by her parents, as far back as anyone can remember.”

“So what does-”

“ _I answered!_ ” The words came out almost like a snarl, hungry and desperate.

He couldn’t help it- he laughed. “We are definitely not gonna try any sort of denial games with you,” he said, fumbling for a moment with her underpants. When he touched her soft curls, she whimpered again, her head turned against his chest.

“What’s a denial game?”

“I ask the questions here, sweetheart, not you.” He stroked his fingers softly, just teasing without a destination in mind. “And don’t you go moving your pretty little head so much. If you pull open those wounds, I’m gonna be in a world of trouble.”

“ _Touch me_ ,” she begged, grinding herself against his palm. “Please, Nikos-”

“Shh, sweetheart,” he purred, grinning as he pressed kisses along her brow. He was enjoying this far too much for his own good. “All in good time.”

He took his time with her, cupping her in his bare hand and just massaging her, grinning as he felt her trying to open her legs to encourage him further. He let his mouth wander down her cheek, and she finally turned her face up to meet his lips; for a minute or two he lost himself in her, kissing her softly while he teased her with his hand. It took awhile, but he felt the moment when she relaxed against him, still horny as shit but not so wound up about it. Good. 

He nuzzled at the corner of her mouth, letting her catch her breath a little. “Next question,” he said, pulling back in the hope he could see her face in the darkness, “are you doing it to yourself now, and does it hurt like it looked like it hurt all the other folk you did it to?” 

She went still beneath him, not even twitching her hips against the movement of his hand. He could just make out the way her eyes had gone wide, and even if he couldn’t see the expression in them, he could guess at it. His heart sank.

“Sparky?”

She ducked her head down, trying to avoid his gaze, and that pretty much confirmed it. “What happens if I don’t like a question?” she asked quietly. “If I- if I don’t answer, I mean.” 

He closed his eyes, trying to work out how to say what he wanted without making her close off from him. “Bejah,” he said, aware of how completely wild it was to be trying to have one of them fancy relationship talks all serious like, while he had his hand down her pants. “I don’t want you hurting.” 

She took a shaky breath, and he could just about feel the way her mood took a complete one-eighty. “It’s not so bad,” she said, but he weren’t having none of that. 

“I didn’t ask that, sweetheart, I asked if it hurt you.”

She hesitated for so long that he thought she was going to ignore the question entirely, and he’d just about reached the point where he was gonna back down and apologise for pressing her for details she didn’t want to give, when he heard her sigh. “Yes,” she whispered, the words so quiet he had to lean in close to hear them. “It’s like... missing a limb, or one of your senses. You keep going to use it, and you forget it’s not there, and your whole body aches from the absence of it.”

He was right- this was a completely inappropriate time for him to have his hand down her pants. He felt awkward as shit now. 

“Why’d’ya keep it locked up, if it hurts you so much?” he asked. He saw the white flash of her teeth in the darkness as she bit her lip, her face turning to the side as if she was about to cry and ashamed for him to see it. “Sweetheart?”

“Because if I don’t use it, then maybe it’ll go away, and maybe I’ll stop being a sith.” 

That was just- _fuck_. She was the most fucking amazing person he’d ever met, and she hated herself so much that she wanted parts of herself to stop existing? Stars, and he’d played right into her self loathing, bagging out the sith whenever anyone gave him the opportunity. 

He took a deep breath, resting against her side as he leaned in close enough for him to touch his nose to hers. “Undo it,” he growled softly. 

She sighed miserably. “Nikos,” she began, but he didn’t give her a chance to wriggle out of it. 

“Undo it, Bejah,” he growled, louder now. “I ain’t in love with half of you, I’m in love with all of you. That means the little sith witch hiding in there too. Let her out.” 

She stared up at him, as if trying to gauge whether or not she could trust him, and stars above and below but he wished it wasn’t so dark in here right now. All he wanted was for her to see the truth in his eyes. 

Bejah took a shuddering breath- and changed. 

It weren’t a subtle thing either, and he had to wonder just how blind he’d been these last few months to miss it. The air all but crackled with power, sizzling over his skin not terribly unlike a static charge. It settled in his flesh, humming brilliantly and making him feel revitalized and eager and all but fucking manic from the sheer energy of it. 

He’d felt it on the ship, he realised, a couple of times now- when she’d been dancing with her little droid that first day, and when she’d stormed onto the ship on Alderaan to break the brats apart. When they’d had sex, too; her restraints must have slipped ever so slightly because he remembered it so vividly, the way he’d felt powerful and invigorated and fucking high as a hawk. He figured it’d just been the thrill of sex, and having sex with a partner he was actually interested in after months of nothing but quick fucks with strangers, but in hindsight that was a fucking inane and hopelessly romantic thing to have thought. 

Fuck, he was turning into a romantic for her. He had no regrets. 

He realised she was trembling, holding her breath as she waited for his response- she was _frightened_ , fully expecting him to turn on her now that she’d exposed this part of herself. She was a sith, one of the most powerful creatures in the galaxy, and she was afraid of his opinion of her. In another lifetime, before he’d had the shit kicked out of him by Lady Luck, he might’ve been the sort of man to be thrilled by that, and the power it offered. 

He weren’t that man no more, and didn’t ever want to be even remotely close to that sort of person again. He was gonna be better, for her and for himself. 

“You’re beautiful, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, hovering over her; as bad as he wanted to kiss her, he didn’t want to throw himself on her without checking that she believed him. 

“Really?” she whispered.

He laughed shakily, feeling peculiarly raw and exposed himself. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Sparky,” he said. “Every inch of you. _Really_.” 

She let out a whimper, something between aroused and weepy. “I love you, Nikos,” she said.

He still had his hand down her pants, and he began to tease again, delighting in the sharp intake of breath and the soft moan that followed from her. “Next question,” he said, all but whispering the words. “What’s a mecha-whatsit, like he called you back on Dromund Kaas?” 

“Mechu-deru,” she said, panting. Her hips were jerking against his hand, and he couldn’t find it in himself to tell her off. “The Force grants me an intuitive understanding of mechanical systems, and I can control them.” 

“And that’s not a normal power, or whatever?”

She shivered. “They told me it’s rare?” The shiver turned into a drawn out moan as he gave up all pretense of teasing and parted her with his hand, a finger sitting poised at her entrance. “ _Nikos_.”

Kriffin’ fucking stars, his dick was throbbing and he was still fully dressed- she was still fully dressed. He felt taut and strung out, not quite at the point where he couldn’t come back but certainly dizzy with need. “Does that super power of yours mean you can lock doors with your mind?”

“ _Yes_.”

He kissed her hard, scrabbling to rein himself in a moment later when he reminded himself of her injuries. “Lock the door, Sparky,” he said hoarsely, each word a kiss against her lips. 

He heard the immediate click of the electronic locks sliding into place, and he wasn’t even surprised at how much that sound turned him on. He drove his finger into her, and she cried out, her hips lifting off of the bed to meet him halfway. He kissed her, she kissed him, it was messy and desperate and needy and all that mattered was that it was her and she was here in his arms and he hadn’t fucked up the most important thing he’d ever found in the entire galaxy. 

He wanted to have her naked, he wanted to hold her and never let her go, but right now this was a good compromise. He had _her_ , and that was enough. 

He felt rather than saw the lights flicker- it was dark in their room, after all, but he could feel the power that stuttered out of her as he drove her closer to the edge with his hand. She was whimpering and panting, grinding herself down on his fingers, and stars if the sounds she was making weren’t making it hard to keep his own head level. 

“Nikos,” she gasped, writhing under him in a way that was delightfully familiar, “I love you.”

“Love you too, Sparky,” he rasped, flicking his thumb against the top of her clit. 

She came with a wail, and there was a tremendous surge of _something_ in the air; it was all too much, the smell of her arousal and the heat of her and the sounds she was making and now this sizzling buzzing magic thing. He grunted, and he came in his pants like a green kid, grinding against her hip like he didn’t have no house training. 

They were lying together in the aftermath, and he was tracing little patterns on her belly while he kissed her forehead, and she kept whispering over and over that she loved him. 

He wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t died in that prison and that this weren’t some blissful paradise in the afterlife that he definitely hadn’t earned.

“I love you,” he murmured, not quite able to believe he was saying it, and how easy it was to say.

She shivered, and kissed his chin. “I love you too.”

Someone banged loudly on the door, making them both tense in apprehension. “So the power is out in four city blocks in every direction,” Kallathe yelled through the door. “Do either of you have anything to say for yourselves?”

It was dark in the room, but not so dark that they couldn’t look at one another, and burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not the last of Bejah and Andronikos, and certainly not the last of Kallathe and Kaltix either- they'll all be coming back in the sequel to Empire's Ransom, which will be starting shortly!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and for enjoying this with me.


End file.
